By Andrés Muñoz
When I was in California studying a Masters in Entertainment Industry Management, I had a class called TV Business and Legal Affairs. It was taught by this kindly old man who went through lots of hard work to explain the complicated ins and outs of the business deals that make up the most iconic business sector of the city of Los Angeles: the studio system and its networks.
Most importantly, he showed us how the profits of an audiovisual product are divided among the people who worked on it. Nowadays, I’m not as involved in the film & television industry as I was before, but I am interested in exploring how diversity is being fitted in the TV industry. Let’s have a look…
How It Works
Packaging is a crucial concept when it comes to the entertainment industry. It essentially means that you take a written product like a book or a series of novels and literally “repackage” it for television. You adapt the story here and there so that each big chunk of narrative fits within a TV season, and lo and behold, you have a Game of Thrones, a Witcher, etc.
In an original series, a relationship with an author is obviously involved, who is adequately compensated for the adaptation. It starts with an option agreement, where a studio usually pays the author upfront to grant the rights to convert the book into a TV series. This can expand to a developer fee, where the author is paid to collaborate with the producers, all the way to obtaining royalties.
Royalties are a percentage of the show’s revenue paid by broadcasters, streamers, or syndication to air the show. Add to that a producer’s credit, merchandising rights, and (naturally) a boost in the original book’s sales, and you can definitely see how becoming an author who has their TV series adapted to the screen is a profitable enterprise.
Herein Lies The Rub
Why am I going on and on about the business deals of the entertainment industry? As they say in those classic investigative reporting shows: Follow the money. Thankfully, in recent years, Hollywood has included an increasingly higher number of diverse casts. From a purely financial standpoint, studios and streamers have caught up on the fact that casting more racially diverse actors will make more money and bring larger audiences. But more is needed.
As it happens with books and almost every other aspect of our society, societal elements make it harder for diverse authors to have the same opportunities to have their stories told, published and adapted to television. Black, Asian, Latin American, and other authors repeatedly find it more challenging to reach the same level of success as their white counterparts.
For example, some of the 5 most popular writers who have had their works adapted to TV in the past 10 years are:
George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones), Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale), Andrzej Sapkowski (The Witcher), Diana Gabaldon (Outlander), and Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials) also all happen to be white.
Racially diverse writers should also have the opportunity to have their stories adapted to TV with the same level of commitment and dedication.
The Road Ahead
Many cases of television series involving a racially diverse cast now exist, which is a step in the right direction. However, many of those series have been retrofitted. In other words, it is generally a white person who wrote the story, or it has been based on a white person.
The regency-era romantic television drama Bridgerton exemplifies how things are moving forward, but there is still room for improvement. Executive produced by the Black screenwriting grandmistress of Grey’s Anatomy fame, Shonda Rhimes, this is a story where young people in upper-class London in the 1800s try to find their romantic match, all while a secretive Lady Whistledown posts the juiciest gossip on a printed column. Think Pride and Prejudice meets Gossip Girl.
Even though the cast is very diverse, with Golda Rosheuvel and Rege Jean-Page delivering acclaimed performances in pivotal roles, the original Bridgerton books were written by Julia Quinn and do not include any racially diverse characters.
As said before, it’s a step in the right direction. Ms Rhimes is definitely reaping the financial benefits of a highly successful series as an executive producer, but we can certainly do better. How?
We cannot only rely on the individual brilliance of original writers like Shonda Rhymes or Donald Glover and his otherworldly and engaging Atlanta, but instead, we need to focus on creating opportunities for racially diverse authors to have the same level of success for the TV adaptations of their books. This, in turn, will help create opportunities for other racially diverse writers, directors, and actors to shine.
Share in the comments below your suggestions for other books written by non-white writers that should have their own TV adaptation!