Do you want cave lions? Because that's how you get cave lions!

And it's young people who pay for most of their care.

With so many advancements and near miraculous treatments being discovered almost daily it's never been a better time to be a mouse!

It's french for "heirs". Gezz, pay attention to the context.

I wondered why it was suddenly completely overcast where I live! Seriously, it's like mother nature hates me seeing meteor showers. Every time....

Not that I don't feel that writers are underpaid for the work they do, but let's not make it out like they are not getting paid at all. WGA base for a 20 of 26 week contract is around $4,700 a week going into the 2014-2015 season. And that's just the minimum. I'm sure most of the staff writers on the show are making above contract minimums by now.

It's pretty easy to see the difference. Actors don't hire/fire staff (for the most part) and they don't run companies into the ground costing hundreds or thousands of people to go unemployed.

Well, ignoring the fact that Mayim Bialik is a real scientist the fact is most of them are really terrible actors. No one would watch it, the show would be cancelled in its first season, and they would all be unemployed having left their research positions to go do a stupid TV show.

I wanted to break this out because I find it fascinating that you feel this way.

Ignoring the fact that you can vote with your dollars and not buy said product, how exactly do you feel that you are entitled to a say in how a company that you buy a product from spends its money? The vast majority of companies are not monopolies (if they were, they wouldn't need to advertise so much) so you have a choice when you buy a product. For most essentials you can even choose generics that don't have much ad cost built into them.

I mean, do you believe your employer should be given a say in how you spend your pay? They are paying you for your labor in the same way you are paying a company for a product. Do you think they should be able to tell you how much to spend on beer? Criticize you for buying too fancy a car? Or maybe the customers of your employer should be allowed to criticize them for paying you what they consider too much.

No, he is correct. The advertisers pay based on ratings. The network certainly isn't going to cut them a deal, they will charge the maximum they can, regardless of the production costs. It's the ad buyers, not the networks, in the driver's seat when it comes to price. Just because the actors get a raise doesn't mean that the ad rates are going to go up. Not to mention that most of those rates are probably done deals by now, well before this was even announced. With all the cable choices these days, network TV ratings are in the shitter. A show pulling a 4.0 in demo is a hit today, where 20 years ago it would have been cancelled on the spot. Advertisers have a huge choice of where to spend there money when it comes to media buys and they won't hesitate to use that leverage to keep prices down. CBS can't go to them and say "Look, production costs went up, so you need to pay more". They will say "Ratings didn't go up, so screw off. This is what we will pay. Take it or leave it."

WB is selling the show to CBS, and they are doing so at a prices that's probably near costs. Since WB owns the show, not CBS, WB will be the ones to syndicate it off network in the US, as well as first run and syndication rights in foreign markets worldwide. That is where almost all of their profit will come from. Studios can actually afford to lose money on first run for a show because they know they will make all of their profits in syndication. Sony Entertainment is famous for practically giving shows away so that they can get over the syndication threshold (generally around 80-100 episodes). 'Til Death and Rules of Engagement being two recent examples from them.

Now for the network, the profits are pretty much front-loaded. Salaries and other costs are lowest during the first 3 years, so if a show is a hit they stand to make bank with the understanding that their costs will increase over time (and, they hope, the show's ratings so they can increase their ad prices). Either way, they won't air a show they are losing money on. With how quickly this was resolved, I think it's safe to say that there is plenty of margin for them to absorb the increased costs at the current ad rate. TV shows are bait to draw in viewers (the product) so they can sell your eyeballs to advertisers (the customers). If the bait isn't working or it's not cost effective, they get rid of it and get something new.

So WB and CBS will probably share in the cost increase. In the long run it's a drop in the bucket compared to the show's profits, and it's not some unexpected cost, it's been planned for and expected. It definitely won't fall on the ad buyers unless the new salaries somehow ties into a ratings increase.

Now, if you have problems with how companies spend on ads then don't buy.... well, anything. And don't watch live TV. Or DVR recordings for at least 5 days so you are completely out of being counted in the C3 ratings that ad prices are based on. Vote with your dollar and eyeballs.

Are you:
* A bank?
* A utility?
* A large corporation?
* A defense contractor?
* A military?
* A government?
* A "whistlebower" (in the figurative sense, not someone who just blows a literal whistle)?
* A journalist?
* A civil rights/government abuse/environmental/economic activist?
* Are you a member of an "anti-government" group or movement?
* Are you Muslim?
* Are you or have you ever been brown?
* Now or will you in the future travel through a customs inspection area of any country?
* Under active investigation by a law enforcement agency?
* A rabble-rouser?
* A person with opinions that are counter to those of your government?
* A sentient artificial lifeform?

If you answered yes to any of the above, then yes you need to be worried. If you did not, then no, you probably don't need to be worried.

It frightens me that this is both funny and insightful at the same time.

Then people would just bitch about it being paywalled.