p.s. — The studios and production companies prefer the residual arrangement. Their upfront risk is less under the arrangement. In effect, they are sharing the risk with the writers. If the TV show or movie is a success, then the writers take a cut of the eventual profits. If it fails, then the producers haven’t risked a great deal of money. Otherwise they’d end up paying millions of dollars for each script and not know if the show will be a success.
Under those terms, the studios are likely to treat writers with more contempt than they did James Garner when it came to residuals for The Rockford Files.