The Simpsons gets a longer lifespan, but the voice actors lose out

whoo-hoo After a few weeks of tense negotiations with the show’s voice actors, “The Simpsons” will have two more full seasons before it finally goes into syndication heaven — making for 25 full years.
d’oh The negotiations centered on a fight over giving the voice actors back-end profits, which appears to be something they weren’t able to get. Also, fans of the show may just want to see it end. source

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what “The Simpsons” is facing some significant budgetary issues, and Fox is trying to figure out a way to cut costs so the show remains profitable. If it can’t, the 23-year-old show, which predates every other scripted show on the prime-time schedule, will face cancellation.
why The big problem is that the voice actors on the show, who fought for higher wages (and won) many times, are being asked to take significant cuts in salary (they make $8 million per year), which they’re fighting. Also, it probably doesn’t help that ratings are down. source

» Putting the D’oh out to pasture? The Simpsons is still widely-regarded, but with roughly 500 episodes under its belt, Fox may be ready for the next step in the “Simpsons” phenomenon — its own cable network. It’d be interesting if the salary battle is really an excuse to end “The Simpsons” outright.

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They certainly have enough episodes to pull it off. One of News Corp.’s greatest pieces of entertainment could eventually become a franchise all its own. With the series likely to pass the 500-episode mark with its upcoming 23rd season, Fox is reportedly talking about a long-term plan for the franchise, involving a cable network of its own. Obviously, they wouldn’t be able to do this right away — most of the series is embedded in long-term syndication deals — but once those expire, a single network approach might prove to be more financially sound as the series reaches its point of quarter-life crisis. So how would this work, anyway? Let’s do a quick number breakdown:

245 length, in hours, of the series’ current 486 episodes, plus “The Simpsons Movie,” with commercials
10.2 number of days that would manage to fill up, including commercials, before you’d run into a show repeat
35.7 number of times the network would cycle through every single episode, plus a movie, in a single year source

» So, what do you guys think? Is a network built around a single show, even one as diverse and far-reaching as “The Simpsons,” something you’d watch? Or would it be like the original MTV — where everyone loved the idea of it, but didn’t necessarily stick with it? We’re not sure, but there are probably some pretty killer OWN Network jokes they could make if Fox did this.

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09 Oct 2011 11:17