'Suits' Writers Call Out Netflix & Peacock for Low Residuals, Reveal How Much They've Earned

Writers who worked on the hit USA series Suits are calling out streaming services like Netflix and Peacock for the low residuals they pay out.

The Writers Guild of America union is currently on strike right now and one of the things they are fighting for is better residuals from streamers, and this totally illustrates why it’s an important issue.

Lilla Zuckerman wrote several episodes of Suits and also served as a producer on multiple seasons. She revealed how much money she received from residuals back in 2016 when they show was only airing on TV versus how much she’s earning now that the show is streaming.

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Lilla found the residual checks she received for the season five episode “Blowback,” which she wrote. She told Decider, “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.”

“It’s really hard to sort through all these checks, because you get dozens of them that are like $7 here, $30 there, and so forth. But that’s with Suits airing on two different major streaming platforms. It’s this blockbuster hit, and I received a grand total of $414 for it,” she added.

Lilla‘s sister Nora, her writing partner, added, “You hope that maybe some magical check will arrive, but it does not appear.”

Suits writer Ethan Drogin told the Los Angeles Times that for writing the season one episode “Identity Crisis,” he earned just $259.71 in streaming residuals.

“All together, NBCUniversal paid the six original Suits writers less than $3,000 last quarter to stream our 11 Season 1 episodes on two platforms,” he said.

Lilla took to Twitter to respond to Peacock’s account bragging about being the only streamer to have all nine seasons of the show. She tweeted, “Congrats! Would be nice for me and my fellow writers to get paid for all of this.”

Here’s why all nine seasons of Suits are not on Netflix.