Chinese Artistes’ Salaries Affected by Covid-19

With the Mainland Chinese television and film production taking a hit from the coronavirus pandemic, the market is facing a dire lack of finances, prolonged production timelines, and difficulties in infection control. These have led to a sharp decline in film acquisition prices and many resulting issues. The China Television Drama Production Industry Association (CTPIA), Capitol Radio & TV Program Producers Association and other industry stalwarts have voiced their suggestion for the industry to limit the budget for television and web drama production costs to 4 million yuan per episode, cut salaries of film crew by 30 percent, as well as to target the trend of main creators and cast members being overpaid so as to keep salaries across the  production spectrum more equitable.

According to international guidelines, the salaries of the scriptwriter or director of a television drama or web series, or that of the main male and female leads should not be higher than 10 percent of the entire production costs, while the combined salaries of the entire acting cast should not exceed 40 percent of total production costs. This implies that even top actors should not receive over 400,000 yuan for filming each episode of a television drama.

Celebrity couple, Deng Chao (鄧超) and Betty Sun (孫儷), have not had new drama appearances for a long time, while actor Wallace Huo (霍建華) has also not received any Chinese drama offers for as long as a year.

Source: On.cc