On Sun, Sep 23, 2018 at 6:17 AM JW <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm almost positive that if you look at cast lists for the past decade or > two, you'll see that everyone starts as a "featured player" and becomes a > full cast member after a couple years if he or she is still around. >
My take is that featured players are serving a probationary period for the show. They get a season or two in what's probably a lower paying yearly contract and the show can see if they can conform to the weekly schedule, get along with the staff, and perform on live TV. Since there is no training ground for putting together a new 90 minute live show every week it takes time to train them and see if they can thrive. I vaguely remember that during the mid-1990s turnover of the show it was reported that cast members sign seven year contracts with Broadway Video. Of course there are outs as cast members got fired and some have moved on in less than seven years. having featured players keeps Lorne from having to sign people to these long contracts before they have proved themselves. And the long contracts keep breakout stars from squeezing Lorne for lots more money in order to return for a new season. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
