UPDATE 11AM: The upcoming fifth season of Mad Men is now slated to debut in March 2012. That is 17 months from the series’ fourth season finale. While the protract
ed negotiations between Mad Men creator/ exec producer Matt Weiner and AMC/Lionsgate TV led to the acclaimed series’ pushed production start and, in turn, caused the show to miss its original July premiere date, the new March return date is not directly tied to the contract talks. According to sources with knowledge of the negotiations, Weiner had been actually pushing for a shorter gap between Seasons 4 and 5 and had stated that he could get Season 5 produced and delivered on budget for a 2011 premiere. However, I hear AMC’s argument was that it has now 5 original series to accommodate and its next available slot for Mad Men was in March 2012. Mad Men was AMC’s first series, which put the cable network on the original programming map. Since then, AMC has successfully launched several other series, most recently The Walking Dead, which supplanted Mad Men as the network’s highest-rated show.
PREVIOUS 8AM: Despite not having a deal with Mad Men creator-executive producer Matt Weiner yet, AMC is officially moving ahead with a fifth season of the Emmy-winning period drama, exercising its option with the series’ producer Lionsgate TV. (The cable network made a similar move two years ago when, along with Lionsgate, it was again embroiled in difficult renegotiations with Weiner.) Because of the protracted talks with Weiner, referred to in a statement by AMC as “key non-cast negotiations,” the premiere of Season 5 is being pushed from the summer to early next year. Here is the full statement: “AMC has officially authorized production of season 5 of Mad Men, triggering our option with Lionsgate. While we are getting a later start than in years past due to ongoing, key non-cast negotiations, Mad Men will be back for a fifth season in early 2012.”
Weiner is poised to become the highest-paid showrunner on basic cable with a new mega deal that would pay him close to $30 million over three years. But the lengthy negotiations, which have put Season 5’s start of production on hold, may have hit a snag in the final stretch. As we reported last night, Weiner is objecting to three things AMC/Lionsgate are asking for: integrating product placement into the series, cutting two minutes from each episode’s running time in favor of more commercials, and eliminating/reducing two regular cast members to save money. Meanwhile, also factoring into the negotiations is the pending spinoff of AMC, IFC, We and Sundance Channel into a standalone unit by parent company Rainbow Media.
AMC are being incredibly cheap.
AMC is being pennywise and pound foolish, Mad Men attracts the kind of audience advertisers should salivate over: one third of Mad Men’s regular viewers earn over $100,000 a year.
Instead, AMC wants to kill the golden goose by lopping off two main characters in each of the next three seasons, and give advertisers the right to rewrite scripts for product placement.
Save Mad Men From the Ad Men:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Save-Mad-Men-From-the-Ad-Men/204119552946456
tv networks are so greedy they care nothing about the fans.
I agree. Mad Men is absolutely the best show on television. It is an intelligent drama with an incredible cast. The language and style and leading comments between men and women remind me of when I worked in the record business during the 70’s and 80’s.
The cast of characters are fine. I absolutely see how some should be paid more than others, but each character has created his/her own niche. AMC should not screw up a winning combination with loyal, discriminating, and in many cases highly paid viewers.
What utter BS! Don’t they watch their own programing. Would Don (the character, not the actor)alow this type of shite. No. Push it out sooner. Pay them what they are worth. They aren’t Charlie Sheen, but they should make the money of that wako. Get the season out or you wil lose fans in droves. Baseball has never recovered from it’s strike, and the NBA won’t either. Every body at AMC should be wearing braclets that state “What would Draper do?” WWDD! Watch your own shows and learn some lessons frome your writers: don’t make fun of clarks glasses, because then you’ll be forced to tug on Super Man’s cape.
Trying to think of a more belittling term than “non-cast”.
BUMMER! I was SO looking forward to watching Mad Men this summer. I can’t imagine this series being cancelled — it is incredibly popular.
Bring it back or find a network that will!
No, actually, it isn’t – that’s the complicating factor.
Critically acclaimed, yes. Highly rated – no.
Over rated – Yes, occasionally.
Best show ever Bring it back in 2011.
sooo good
Got to remember that with Jon Hamm, John Slattery and January Jones being Hollywood film stars now, they probably cost AMC alot more now than they did in season 1. AMC don’t have a string of other shows that make them money, they only have Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, and they are not as big as Mad Men. It saddens me because this is my favourite show on television, and I can’t see which two cast members could be considered expendable. I could get past product placement and the extra ad time (just) but I can’t see who could be removed from the show!
Mad Men is clearly too big for AMC now, and its terrible because Weiner can only take the show elsewhere if AMC terminate the contract, which I doubt they will do.
Craig –
Don’t quit your day job. Mad Men gets a lot of hype and buzz, but it doesn’t rate well and it’s definitely not too big for AMC. The fact is that it has about 2.5 million viewers while The Walking Dead, for example, has 6. Mad Men has always been a prestigious brand win for AMC, but it never made too much money for them (if it made any money at all.)
AMC makes a BOAT LOAD of dough on Mad Men. Dvd’s and a specific target audience for advertisers make it a gift to AMC. The show has also bright fresh eyes to a dead network and completely revitalized it for business.
Stop with all that you don’t know or understand.
Pretty certain DVD rights are owned exclusively by Lionsgate.
Know for a fact that all rights are Lionsgate, so AMC make no money other that ads and product placement.
Craig:
While you are correct in regard to Mad Men’s ratings, it is important to note what is stated in the article. Mad Men put AMC on the programming map. Don’t forget the sales from DVD’s, books, Barbies, etc
“Don’t forget the sales from DVD’s, books, Barbies, etc”
Which, since Lionsgate is the sole rightsholder, AMC receives none of.
Fail.
Any more profoundly ignorant observations?
I thought The Walking Dead got over twice the ratings of Mad Men.
Would Frank Darabont have even taken a meeting with AMC without Mad Men on the network? Check out their other programming. Half the commercials are for solid silver 20 dollar bills.
I would find it difficult to call AMC cheap when they are offering to make Weiner “the highest-paid showrunner on basic cable with a new mega deal that would pay him close to $30 million over two years.”
As critically acclaimed as it may be, no one watches the show. Two million viewers-ish. 30 million dollars for Weiner is INSANE.
NOT insane as the territory deals outside US are very profitable. There is a world out here…
Stick to your guns, Weiner! They are trying to strip the show of its integrity to pinch pennies. They already make a mint off dvds, corporate sponsorship, commercials and merchandising; if they make the show jump the shark with these changes, they’ll kill the goose, destroy the fan base and it will all dry up.
Don’t be a Lane Pryce, AMC. Mad Men is your chocolate bunny, hold onto it.
Stick to your guns? Don’t give me that artistic integrity BS. If Weiner wants these things to happen, he should be looking into his own pocket. He should have thought of the impact it would have on the show *before* he wanted 30 million.
Does he deserve to be making that much? Absolutely. But he is making a niche critic’s project, not a mainstream smash hit. Sure, AMC is doing alright with Mad Men, but think about the production costs. Achieving that time period feel with all of those expensive actors isn’t cheap.
If Weiner is all about the $$$, then he should be open arms about the product placement. It’s not like Mad Men hasn’t had brand name products appear before in a way that was harmonious to the show’s content. Think about Kodak’s “Carousel” or those Volkswagon ads they talked about for an entire scene. A good writer can figure out a way to do it that doesn’t ruin the show and hence keeps the show on the air.
Or, if Weiner is not about the $$$ and he is 100% for artistic integrity, then he should take a good 20% pay cut in exchange for what he wants. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Especially not on television.
Neither Kodak or VW paid for that – those are plot points. If you know ANYTHING about advertising, you know that the “Lemon” ad for VW by DDB changed ad history.
And I HIGHLY doubt Kodak still makes the Carousel, or if they do, sells more than 10 a year.
Yes, but all of the products “placed” will of necessity have to be those that were around in the time period.
Well said, Eric. Besides, any negotiation over contracts must logically be based on anticipation of the value of future performance–not merely the successes of the past. And these facts remain: Mad Men did not shine in the Emmys for Season 4; its audience seems unlikely to increase going forward from its high of 2.5 million; and the rose is definitely off the bloom in terms of the saturation of publicity and critic awe it received–peaking around 2009-10.
The Emmys Awards for which Season 4 of Mad Men will be eligible will not be handed out until next September. Mad Men has won Outstanding Drama the past 3 years, all 3 seasons that Mad Men has been in existence.
Aaron Sorkin never made near that money at West Wing, and he was writing 22 episodes a season (albeit with a staff whose contribution was always a little, shall we say, de-emphasized) for a show that was at its peak at top 20 show. Weiner making that much money for a show that has never bumped up above the high 2s OVERALL: bizarre. This show ain’t the Wire or the Sopranos. Why is he getting paid as if it were ER?
I agree. I think Weiner is being greedy now. I think we’re seeing the beginning of the end of this show. Unfortunate.
Sorkin’s money was 10 – years- ago – money. Weiner’s worth it. Plus, he’s bought another year advancing historically through the 60s. It was an incredible decade but it flew by.
Well we know which show WON’T be winning the Emmy this year
The “Mad Men doesn’t have a huge audience” arguments are unconvincing.
Matt Weiner has succeeded in BRANDING an entire network as a quality destination. That’s worth more, and Weiner knows it.
Perhaps, but his work there is now done. You don’t get paid as a reward for what you’ve done in the past. You get paid for what you’re probably going to do now, and given that the network is already branded, and given that Mad Men has maybe, what, one more or two more years in it at most? He no longer has leverage. It’d be different if it was the biggest success or the lone success on the network. It isn’t, and it isn’t.
His work isn’t done. Because if they succeed in pushing Weiner out over these ‘solutions’ to his salary, the stigma, both public and in the community of writers, will ruin whatever branding he helped them with.
Here’s a tip, check futures trading on Rainbow Media. When you hand a network an identity, they owe you.
Yeah but AMC handed Matt Weiner an identity also.
It’s really too bad that Mad Men is on AMC instead of Shotime or HBO. AMC just doesn’t have the budget and Mad Men has gotten a little too big for the network.
I didn’t enjoy (fine, I hated) season 4, but I’m looking forward to season 5. It’s an amazing show, and I don’t expect it to disappoint at all. I’m willing to wait longer than usual to see the greatness.
I just can’t get behind this idea that “Mad Men has gotten a little too big for the network”. The ratings are so low that I can’t think of another network that would keep it on the air – and that includes TNT, FX, and USA. I am glad that AMC wants to stand by the show, but they need to start by not paying the show runner $30 million. Then they could keep all of the cast, no product placement, and keep the 2 minutes. If Weiner loves his show then he will make adjustments, because I guarantee that AMC does not need Mad Men as much as Weiner (and some people here) think they do.
No more need be said Brian. You nailed it. The “suits” at AMC did not understand how to handle MAD MEN when it became a hit show. Instead, they killed it – death by “suits.”
Showtime would run Mad Men in a heartbeat! They kept United States of Tara on the air for 3 seasons for its LOYAL 500,000 viewers. I dont know why everyone is turning their noses up at 2.5 million viewers, no one under the age of 60 watched AMC before Mad Men was on, stop hating on a television show and get a life lol!
You really hated Season 4 I know a lot myself included find it to be their favorite but even those who didn’t find it number 1 still enjoyed it. I think Season 4 had some of the best episodes of the entire series. I just hope they work it all out because without Weiner this show can’t go on.
You can call AMC cheap or Matt Weiner greedy or both sides smart but the long gestation between last season’s finale and Season 5 premiere is going to cost them in the ratings. The public has ADD and a chunk of the core MM audience won’t give a whit by next January.
Not necessarily true. That might be right on a show like Heroes where the hiatus in season one killed its momentum, but with Mad Men — David Chase took a year and a half off of Sopranos, and so when it premiered, there were huge amounts of publicity and attention devoted to its relaunch. Turned it into an event. The same would likely happen with Mad Men.
I’m not sure, but didn’t the SOPRANOS have higher ratings than MAD MEN? If so, that would explain why more people were interested in its return. MAD MEN has low ratings, the sooner people accept that, the better.
This story encapsulates the issues television faces today. It also foretells of the monopolistic nature of the business that is poised to happen. This network and this Studio are major entitites in many regards. Yet Lionsgate is a mini-major and AMC, due to bad management, is bleeding so much red they can’t keep their heads on straight. Is Mad Men a hit? Arguably so when you consider the immense critical acclaim against the very small audience it attracts.
Does Mad Men make money for the Studio and the Network? Perhaps. Here I think the Studio suffers because of the nature of the show and the fact that it’s not obviously a foreign play and with Home Video being reduced to almost nothing, the Studio struggles to monetize its investment in the short term. What Mad Men does for Lionsgate’s library value going forward is a whole other conversation and way too complicated for a comment board.
Does Mad Men make money for the Network? It may have in year 1 and year 2, but year 5 gets more complicated from the standpoint of renewals and bumps that are associated with a “hit” show. The License fee has to be appropriate to the ad revenue. If the channel had a better roll out of programming that drew eyeballs to the channel when Mad Men is off the air, then perhaps they wouldn’t be in such dire straits. But they blew that when Charlie Collier allowed Joel Stillerman to let Christina Wayne go.
So now you have a channel that launched the show, has benefited in terms of its IBITDA because of it, but now is not making the kind of money in ad revenue that it needs to sustain season 5 numbers. You have a Studio that is in the business of supplying television and betting long, struggling with what that ‘long’ number really is when held up against the contracts they have to agree to in Season 5.
But the big issue here is creative freedom and the creative community putting a value on that experience. Matt Weiner could not be rich enough. So it then is about agenting and ego that drives the money grab. But in spite of the success, there may not be money to grab and then what. Could Matt Weiner imagine AMC passing and his precious show going to NBC or CBS where it’s all about benchmark levels and nothing about awards or niche audiences. And what about FX or TNT where the heads of those networks think they are the creative geniuses behind their programming and not the creators themselves. Does anyone think Matt Weiner would enjoy that experience?
I suggest that the Studio needs to embrace the creative in an ownership position that is real and not BS, and the creator value all the day to day things he experiences when a Studio and Network are hands off and decide to make a deal that not only guarantees him Season 5, but 6, 7 and 8!
This is fundamental business and the reality of such needs to be understood to see that this is not about being cheap or dismissive of Creative, it’s about being smart and thinking long term.
Dire straits? Dude, I think Collier and Stillerman are numb nuts, but while Rubicon was a turkey, Walking Dead TRIPLED the ratings that they’d gotten on Mad Men or Breaking Bad. The Killing is getting good advance word. AMC ain’t in dire straits. (Should The Killing and Hell on Wheels fail, well, then the story’s different…)
the difference is the audience…three times as many means dick when they are all comic book reading nerds
Mad Men pulls in an audience that advertisers drool for…that’s how you can pull lower numbers yet still negotiate like a heavyweight
shows like Mad Men will always beat out sci fi and nerdcore drivel for relevance to the money people
“shows like Mad Men will always beat out sci fi and nerdcore drivel for relevance to the money people”
Really?
Who do think is easier to sway by means of a 30 second commercial -the intelligent wealthy (Mad Men audience) or the less intelligent poor (see highly-rated wrestling, Jersey Shore, Saturday Night SyFy Films, etc., etc., etc.).
There is a reason why “quality” TV is relatively scarce – the audience for “bad” TV is *more highly desired* because they are more easily convinced to buy.
And *that* is the *only* thing the “money people” care about.
Until you show me some numbers (CPM rates, etc. ) proving otherwise – I’ll remain convinced that TV is really all about stalking the stupid consumer.
Please learn and follow capitalization rules, weirdo.
How about “cast”?
This is the best show on television. It deserves solid backing by it’s network. Don’t strip the show of it’s essence for money.
The fact that Mad Men is still on the air with such low viewer numbers is proof that AMC has giving solid backing.
EXACTLY. Everyone wants to hate on AMC for this but in all honesty, they have given this show so much support considering its ratings that it’s laughable. The real problem is the $30M payday.
Please someone, cast Jon Hamm in some great films! I need my fix.
He can’t act.
January Jones can easily be cut free. . unless, of course, it was always in the card to have her return to the Donald.
Wouldn’t the South Park guys be the highest paid showrunners on basic cable?
Weiner should just stick to his guns – if it ends, it ends; they were four great seasons.
Giving in on such cheap nickle and diming would be crazy. They’ve all gotten careers out of it, and maybe season five would be one too many. If AMC are going to be that degree of cheap with the property that put them on the map, then maybe everyone should just walk away. It really would serve them right.
Go watch “The Wheel” AKA Kodak Carousel clip on youtube and you will all see how a product placement (iconic at that) can be deftly woven into a series like this. I can think of 15 brands alone from P&G that could work in similar fashion.
Bottom line: this issue should not be a deal breaker in negotiations.
Get creative Matt and work it in.
How can Weiner get $30 mil for a show that barely anyone watches? And how about he give up some of that money to keep his cast intact?
Hollywood writers are very much like NBA basketball stars in the sense that most of them only have a small window where they can possibly make the big money. So when you’re there, at the top of your game, you gotta grab all the money you can, because you’ve got a shelf life.
GO WEINER!
I don’t think it is JUST about money either. I am sure the other sticking points are things he feels take away from his overall creation.
If a deal can’t be worked out, Terence Winter should ask Matt Weiner to come join the Boardwalk Empire writing staff. I wonder if season 2 will be more exciting than season 1.
They could save time while simultaneously working in product placement by replacing the opening credits sequence with a fictional commercial for a real brand, “produced by” the show’s fictional ad agency. It’s got the potential to be gimmicky, but if done well, could work well.
I cant bare being without Mad Men for a year I hope they work everything out SOON!! This show is AMAZING and I love it!
Did you not read the article? You’re going to have to wait 17 months.
Brett stop being condescending. Did YOU not read the article? March 2012 is a year from now. 17 months is the time it will be from last air date.