Variety reports that motion picture writer earnings are down, whereas TV writer earnings are up for 2014:

“Hollywood screenwriter earnings slid 5.4% last year to $313.9 million — the fifth straight year of decline — while TV writing earnings rose 2.3% to $725.6 million, according to the Writers Guild of America West…. A total of 3,888 writers reported TV earnings, a gain of 39 slots. Feature film employment fell 5.6% to 1,556 writers, or 96 fewer than in 2013.”

Note that this totals over $1 billion and includes almost $400 million for residuals:

“The WGA West, which has about 8,000 members, reported that residuals surged 2.5% to a record high of $383.7 million with gains of 4.8% in TV to $245.4 million while sliding 1.5% in features to $138.3 million. But the five-year comparisons show that film has been flat while TV has been surging. Film residuals are up 2.8% since 2009 while TV has gained 60.4% since 2008.”

No word on what the WGA East writers earned in 2014.

See the WGA Schedule of Minimums.

My take: TV writing seems to earn twice as much as film work, even though film pays more. I think that’s because there are just so many more TV episodes to write. One of the takeaways for me is to learn just how few professional media writers there are actually writing.