The Night Agent Producer Reveals Just How Little the Netflix Success Affected His Pay

The Night Agent came out of nowhere earlier this year and took Netflix by storm. The political thriller, based on the book by Matthew Quirk, didn't get a huge advertising campaign ahead of its release, but the trailers, good reviews, and word of mouth helped make it a massive hit. The Night Agent is now one of the most-watched shows in Netflix history, but that success didn't translate to extra pay for those who brought it to life.

The streaming model isn't designed to make creators or writers extra money when they're shows are successful. In a new piece about the flaws of streaming, Vulture spoke to The Night Agent creator and producer Shawn Ryan. A veteran of television, Ryan knows how things are usually supposed to go when you've got a hit on your hands, and the numbers put up by The Night Agent should be translating to a big pay day.

"I had done the calculations. Half a billion hours is the equivalent of over 61 million people watching all ten episodes in 18 days. Those shows that air after the Super Bowl — it's like having five or ten of them. So I asked my lawyer, 'What does that mean?'"

"In my case, it means that I got paid what I got paid. I'll get a little bonus when Season 2 gets picked up and a nominal royalty fee for each additional episode that gets made. But if you think I'm going out and buying a private jet, you're way, way off."

Ryan went on to say that the streaming model doesn't work the same way as traditional television. It used to be that making money for a network or studio turned into money for the creators and writers. That's not the case with a show on streaming.

"The promise was that if you made the company billions, you were going to get a lot of millions," he said. "That promise has gone away."

Ryan added that he's "not complaining" about the lack of extra income, but that it does represent a massive shift in how television has always worked.