The curious case of Suits is one that continues to fascinate and frustrate in equal measure, with the nine-season legal drama continuing to shatter viewership records on a weekly basis.
Having smashed its own benchmark twice over after spending three consecutive weeks at the head of the Nielsen streaming charts, the show has racked up an eye-watering 12.7 billion minutes in that time, making it far and away the single most-watched episodic title available on any platform.
And yet, it was only recently that one staff writer revealed their residuals hadn’t even amounted to $260, with more members of the team offering an even more damning indictment. Speaking to Decider, sisters Nora and Lilla Zuckerman – who were producers on season 4, supervising producers on season 5, and writers on each of the 16-episode runs – have seen their income plummet at the same time Suits has taken off on-demand, with the episode “Blowback” being singled out.
“I received $12,568.57 in residuals. That was back in 2016, where I imagine it was probably being sold internationally and re-airing on USA. This year, 2023, where Suits has been viewed for billions and billions of hours on Netflix, I received the grand total of $414.26 on that episode.”
That hits the nail on the head as to why the strikes have placed streaming directly in the center of the storm, with the massive surge in viewership having the opposite effect on the bank balances of the people who created the monster-sized hits in the first place. Suits is on a roll, but it would be safe to say that its writers most definitely are not.
