Zero overt racism. Still, there is exactly one black talent, MP lit or TV agent at WME and another sort-of agent in the book department who doesn't really have clients.

The problem isn't that minorities are deliberately excluded, the opposite is in fact true. But the job pays nothing and it takes like 5 years minimum to make real money. You have to have family money or savings or a spouse that earns money to make that realistic.

Also, minorities are going to be more sensitive to the abusive, hostile work environment. It sucks enough being told you're dumb all the time, it's even worse when you're a black or hispanic person being screamed at by a white person. Just a different dynamic that has to be tough to handle.

There was a huge blowup when I worked there over a really bad minority assistant who wrote a '**** you' e-mail to the whole company on his way out then sued the company alleging all sorts of racism. I didn't know him but every single person who did said he was a horrible assistant. He probably did get abused a bit, but no worse than anyone else and they tell you how it's going to be before they hire you.

So is there any clear discrimination? No. Is it really hard for minorities? Yes. Did I hear individual agents say horribly offensive things with racial connotations? On occasion, yes.

Can someone explain what a covering agent does? Why do bigger stars need more than 1 agent? In the event of having more than one agent how does the commission get split among them?

Yeah the average assistant is way better looking than your average person off the street, even in LA. In my experience it won't limit your career once you get hired if you're fat or whatever, but many of those people don't fit in, don't get desks, and leave pretty quickly. It's pretty brutal really, very junior high.

what % of the assistants at WME were just using it as the typical 1-2 year stepping stone to a prime non-agency assistant gig? Always assumed it was > 50% at the top 4 based on all the people I knew who did it at CAA/END etc with 0 interest in ever becoming an agent.

what aspect did u like best/worst in terms of being on a talent desk?
same ? for lit desk

Hey, I got this great book-script-movie idea I want you to look at

How many times do you hear that from family, friends or people you meet that find out what you do? How do you wiggle out of it?

Matt Damon seems like a down to earth, cool dude, true/false?

Riverman - cool thread - I should show it to my buddy at CAA, be interesting to hear if it's similar there (he's been an agent there for a while).

To your post above - as someone who dwells on the economics of the media business a lot, the above T&E spending is cause for consternation.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr...lliam-morris27

The article could be slightly off, but I imagine it's ball park correct - citing that the combined entity of William Morris and Endeavor would drive ~$325 million in revenues for the year with 300 total agents.

Just the simple math tells you that the firm drives a little over $1 million/agent a year in revenue. Throwing in a ton of support staff and general capex/operating expenses... how profitable are agencies? I assume it's a very top-heavy pay out structure. And while I think you mentioned junior agents make less than $100k, I believe my friend at CAA (who is a "full-agent", but not like a partner) makes like $400k+.

Using those numbers as a starting point, this suggests that the economics of the agency business are pretty low margin and not that profitable - so it's surprising that the cost side seems to go so unmonitored.

Welcome back, Al!

Did you go to Michigan Law school? Take any bar?

Along this line, how many females were assistants/agents? Do female assistants get abused as bad as males? I'd think females would be much more likely to sue over (sexual) harassment so the abuse would be less.

Haha, couldn't help myself, this is an interesting thread and relevant to my interests! (You can also read my revised thoughts on Groupon!)

Not sure if Riverman can answer my questions, but the economics of the talent business are definitely interesting. I was pretty shocked to read that WME drives so little revenue per agent - always thought the economics were way more robust than that.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct...t-caa-20101002

Article about TPG (private equity shop) buying 35% of CAA for $150 million. Seems like with the WME merger, and CAA's need to receive outside funding, there are pressures on the economics of the talent business.

Basically it seems like a model that serves to drive great wealth for the very top people, and everyone else gets scraps - not unlike the actual Hollywood talent model now that I think about it.

when an agent or assitant read a script what % of the script gets read? is it really 100% seems like it would take several hours to get through an entire script. also, if the agent doesn't think it's good, does he pass it along to another agent or just hold on to it?

Does this mean each agent grosses $1mm for the agency?

Was it mentioned earlier what the commissions are on each type of deal? I assume movie stars getting $25mm pay a lower % than actors working for scale or unknown writers selling a script.

A few thoughts on this:

1. WME fired a bunch of agents after the merger, since you don't need dupicate covering agents. Also revenue streams belong to the agency not the agent, so they could fire old, high-salary guys and hang on to their clients' commissions indefinitely. These factors both likely increased profitability.

2. I didn't see a source for that revenue figure, but it sure seems low to me. It's in agencies' interests to lowball those numbers.

3. Yes, you are right, it is very, very top heavy. But everyone is very tight-lipped about compensation matters so I'm not qualified to offer an informed opinion because I wasn't exposed to that side of things.

Oh, I was just taking WME's reported top line which was only $325 million a year in revenues for 300 agents = $1 million an agent. Of course higher level agents will drive higher commissions as their clients make more.

Makes sense. Though I would think that that certain clients would leave based on certain agents being fired after a while.

Why is it in an agencies' interest to lowball those numbers? To show that they are focused on only a select few? I'd think higher numbers would show how powerful you are in the industry - with more clients with higher commissions, and more packaged deals?

Yeah the number is strangely low to me - but I'm talking more directional - sure maybe it's $500 million a year, not $325 million (I remember reading CAA was like around $500 million a year) - either number is not that significant a number when compared to any major LOB for a major media company. Not peanuts of course, but you'd think the best agency in Hollywood would drive a lot more in revenues, especially with the packaged TV deal participation. (Understood you don't want to throw it in your top clients face how much you're making off of them, but aren't agencies' commission/participation deals pretty standard, so it's very transparent to your clients anyway?)

Either way - I wasn't too focused on the top-line, more the bottom-line - based on the fact that WME was formed (with ensuing cuts as you mentino), and CAA require outside funding - and these are the top 2 agencies in the game - my suspicions that it's a low margin business are probably not far off. So again, pretty surprising costs are not monitored more closely and a mid-level agent can book a $25k plane ticket. Just seems seriously ******ed in a business that is not wildly profitable (would be ******ed in that scenario as well, but less eye-brow raising).

Got it.

Thanks for the insight, again, cool thread.

Actually, a bit more on the economics of it all - but dumb question, Riverman.

So if you have say a huge star as a client, a Matt Damon for example - I mean how much does this guy earn in a year, like $40 million in jobs you guys book for him? If so that means he's bringing in at 15% commission like $6 million a year? Is there some other Damon-related revenue source I'm totally missing?

Definitely the TV packages can be lucrative, but I've seen these deal structures and they top off at around 10% net participation. For a huge hit series, 10% profit participation for the agency can be maybe $30 million for the year. (I mean that's very much at the top.)

Considering these are the homeruns for the agency business (huge movie stars/TV packaging), and a small % of the total client/deal portfolio - I think if you add it all up the $325 million in annual revenues for a big agency like WME makes sense.

But maybe I'm missing some major revenue stream - my understanding is agencies don't tend to participate on movie profits, or if they do it's very nominal?

How does the agency cut work if the client gets part of the box office? Any crazy examples of this?

Yah, that's pretty much what I was asking. Maybe I'm completely missing that - but let's say in the very famous gross participation deal Keanu Reeves had on the Matrix revenues (where he earned an estimated $100 mil+ on participation in box office receipts) - did his agency get a piece of that? Is it standard? Seems like it should be as the agency negotiated that piece for him.

In general do you think most agents would prefer to be managers?

Definitely not. Managers are in many cases glorified assistants who have to deal with the most mind-numbing, trivial nonsense around. The direct deposit for my check didn't go through. Can you look into finding me a good nanny in Vancouver? Just not fun at all.

Now, there are a few exceptions where elite managers who function like agents have major creative input and come on to anything the talent does as a producer (agents are legally prohibited from doing this). That's a pretty great gig but really hard to achieve.

The agency will generally commission any and all income the talent receives. The money goes through the agency and there is an accounting department that tracks all compensation.

It's pretty rare for the agency to agree to cut commission below the usual 10%, though my sense is that when it happens it's a closely guarded secret. They will lose clients over this if they have to, which is in my opinion smart. Ovitz famously represented a ton of big stars for free back in the day in order to build the credibility of his business at CAA, but I don't think there's much of that going on these days.

It depends. If it's being read for a specific character, it will often get skimmed for the part in question. If you're covering a movie you'll usually real the whole thing unless it's terribad. Agents don't read scripts unless they have a good reason to because reading scripts sucks. Almost all of them are awful, even the ones considered 'good.' Which makes sense if you think about it, how many legit good movies get made each year? Not many.

There are a bunch of female agents. They are generally labeled as crazy, which is pretty sexist but also sometimes true. It's the kind of thing where you can never show weakness and people have to be scared of ****ing with you. Also there's just no time for niceties and that's seen as bitchy coming from a woman and tough coming from a male.

Female assistants often have it easier than male ones, and some agents refuse to consider them because they don't think they'll be able to be as hard on them as they need to be to maximize their business.

I never got that, my family thought and still thinks it was a waste of time, and are currently pretty down on my career choices.

I never dealt with Matt Damon directly but by all accounts he's an awesome guy.