How Streaming Residuals Changed After the 2023 Hollywood Strikes
An explainer on the new streaming success bonus system that SAG-AFTRA and the WGA won in their 2023 contracts, and how it differs from traditional TV residuals.
Photo: Beaulieu · Public domain · source
For years, actors and writers complained that streaming had broken the residuals system that used to pay them for a show’s ongoing popularity — a show could become a genuine hit on Netflix or another platform and the people who made it would see almost nothing extra, because streamers didn’t publish viewership numbers and old residual formulas were built around reruns and DVD sales that no longer existed. The strikes that shut down Hollywood for much of 2023 were fought substantially over fixing that gap, and the contracts that ended them created, for the first time, a direct financial reward tied to how many people actually watch a show.
A strike that lasted nearly four months
SAG-AFTRA’s strike ran from July 14 to November 9, 2023 — just under four months — before a tentative agreement was reached with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) on November 8, 2023. Members went on to ratify the contract with 78.33% support, according to details compiled on Wikipedia’s summary of the strike. It followed a separate, earlier strike by the Writers Guild of America that also centered heavily on streaming compensation and AI protections.
How the new streaming bonus actually works
The centerpiece of the deal was a new “streaming participation bonus,” funded by studios contributing $40 million a year — $120 million over the life of the three-year contract, which ran through June 30, 2026 under the 2023 memorandum of agreement — into a dedicated fund, according to a summary of the agreement by Wrapbook. To qualify, a series, mini-series or television movie has to premiere on or after January 1, 2024, and reach at least 20% viewership of a streaming service’s domestic subscriber base within its first 90 days of release — a genuine popularity threshold, rather than a fixed payment every show gets automatically.
Where the money actually goes
Once a show clears that viewership bar, the bonus pool is split 75/25: 75% is paid out directly to the cast members of that specific hit show, while the remaining 25% goes into a co-run fund jointly managed by the union and the studios, distributed more broadly across SAG-AFTRA membership rather than only to people on hit projects, per the Wrapbook breakdown. That co-fund mechanism is a deliberate acknowledgment that streaming hits are unpredictable and that many working actors will never land on one of the shows that clears the 20% threshold, even in a strong career.
Details were left to be worked out in practice
The full official terms of the deal — the 2023 TV/Theatrical Contracts — are published directly by the union, and SAG-AFTRA maintained a resource page tracking implementation of the agreement for members, available at sagaftra.org. Because streaming viewership data has historically been closely guarded by platforms, one open question industry observers flagged at the time was exactly how the 20%-of-subscribers threshold would be verified in practice — the bonus depended on data that streamers had previously had no obligation to share with anyone.
What the 2026 contracts kept and changed
Both 2023 agreements have since run their course. The WGA’s 2023 contract covered September 25, 2023 through May 1, 2026, according to the Writers Guild of America East summary; writers then ratified a four-year successor running from May 2, 2026 through May 1, 2030, with 90.38% voting in favor, the WGA announced. SAG-AFTRA and the studios reached a tentative deal on a successor to the 2023 TV/Theatrical Contracts on May 2, 2026, per the AMPTP, and members ratified it in June with 91.42% in favor, Deadline reported. The new term runs from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2030. According to the union’s summary of the 2026 agreement, the success bonus stays, the share paid into the broader distribution fund rises from 25% to 35% for qualifying titles that begin exhibition from July 1, 2027, and producers must provide streaming viewership data measured by the same criteria used to calculate the bonus — a direct answer to the verification question raised in 2023.
Why this was a genuine structural change, not just a raise
Traditional television residuals were built around a simple, predictable idea: a rerun airs, ratings are known, a formula pays out. Streaming broke that model because shows don’t “rerun” in the same way and platforms didn’t disclose how many people watched anything. The 2023 agreements didn’t bring back the old residual formula — they built an entirely new bonus system layered on top of base compensation, one that only pays out when a show demonstrably performs, and shares part of the upside more broadly across the union membership rather than only with the cast of a hit.
The takeaway
The 2023 strikes didn’t just win raises — they created the first mechanism directly tying actor and writer pay to a streaming show’s actual popularity, something the old residuals system never did. How often shows cleared that 20%-of-subscribers bar determined how much the new bonus system actually changed take-home pay for working actors over the life of the 2023 contract — and the 2026 agreements kept the mechanism rather than replacing it.
Music went through its own version of this argument when streaming replaced sales — see who actually gets paid when a song streams.