Battling it out with a television network for unpaid royalties might typically seem like a giant waste of time, but apparently, Richard Davis made the right decision. The high end real estate man and star of the first season of Flip This House sued A&E almost five years ago after the cable channel reneged on an oral contract to share half the program's revenues. A lower court ruled in his favor a few years back, but many experts expected the decision to be overturned on appeal since there was never a written agreement between the two parties. Turns out those experts were wrong and Davis will be flipping all the way to the bank.
According to THR, there's still no word from the A&E camp on whether they'll look for new ways to contest the court's decision, but at least for now, one should assume Davis will be paid and A&E will reconsider the way they write contracts. For my money, this whole fiasco is a bit of a shame on both parties. How do you not clearly and coherently commit the revenue sharing to writing? If you've been promised a lot of money, get it down on paper. If you don't have any notion of sharing the windfall, make the star sign to that.
Hollywood has long been known for its rather shady accounting practices, but this ruling is, if nothing else, an overt warning to networks potentially looking to cut stars out of the backend profits. Don't make promises you don't intend to keep. Don't even leave any loopholes. It could end up costing you in the long run.
