CHAPTER 5
Coronado, CA Tuesday, June 15, 2021
“SEVEN-FIFTY A YEAR, FOR FOUR YEARS. THAT’S THE NEW OFFER. IT includes a fifth-year option based on ratings during the final year of the contract. Incentives for reaching benchmarks in certain demos will be included as year-end bonuses.”
“Seven-fifty?” Avery asked. “That’s what they came back with? It’s still low, Dwight.”
“They came up from six-fifty, Avery. Three million over four years is a solid offer,” Dwight Corey said. “As your agent, I strongly advise that you take the money and run.”
It was a comfortable seventy-two degrees in Coronado, California, where the infamous Navy SEAL obstacle course was located. The track stood in all its glory in front of them. Avery had kept in touch with the SEAL who consulted on the minivan episode and, after hearing about the rigors of the SEAL program, Avery hatched the idea of giving her audience a front row look at the life of a Navy SEAL, from recruitment to Hell Week to the six-month BUDs training program. Others had produced similar exposés, but Avery had ideas about how she could put a different spin on hers. She would attempt to complete some of the benchmarks the highly trained warriors were required to overcome before they were christened as members of the elite Special Forces group. She would jump into a pool with her arms bound behind her back and try to survive for sixty minutes, as every SEAL had done. She would brave the icy ocean waters and take the notorious night swim with the sharks. The Navy SEAL obstacle course was considered one of the hardest in the world, and Avery thought it was a good place to start.
Avery had worked her contact and arranged this morning’s abbreviated test run through the course. Waivers were signed and confidentiality papers drawn up. If she managed to get the concept green-lighted, sometime during the next season of American Events, Avery would attempt to run the entire course, or as much of it as was physically possible, while cameras rolled. She would wear combat boots and fatigues if she ever reached that point, but for today’s practice run Avery wore sport shorts and a spandex athletic tank top, short ankle socks and Nike running shoes. Her agent, on the other hand, was impeccably dressed in a beige Armani suit with the coat open but his vest buttoned and his tie tight at his neck. The morning sun glistened the beads of perspiration on his forehead and reflected off his aviator sunglasses.
“What are you, Dwight? Six-five, two-twenty?”
“Six-six, two-forty.”
“I’m five-ten and . . . well, considerably less than that. Take that snazzy suit off and run this track with me.”
“Not a chance. We need to figure out your contract before they pull the offer.”
“Run this track with me and then I’ll consider this terrible offer you’ve negotiated.”
Ten days had passed since Avery went face to face with Mosley Germaine and David Hillary on the beach. Since then, hard negotiating had taken place.
“It’s a good deal, Avery. They offered, we countered, and now they’ve come back somewhere in the middle. It shows their commitment to you.”
“They did not come back in the middle. They barely budged.” Avery bent at the waist to stretch her hamstrings. “Mack Carter was making eight million dollars a year hosting American Events, and my ratings are better than his.”
“Mack hosted the show for years. Hell, he practically created it. There was no American Events before Mack Carter. At least not the American Events that we all know today. And he certainly didn’t make eight million during his second year as host.”
“Ratings and revenue trump years of service, and you know it, Dwight. This is a lowball offer that would lock me in during what should be the most productive years of my career.”
“You’re young. You have decades of prime years in front of you. Avery, listen to me carefully. We can’t demand Mack Carter money. He was an anomaly. Networks don’t base offers on outliers, they base them on averages. This is in line with other newsmagazine show hosts.”
“My average ratings are higher than any of my competitors.”
Avery straightened and then bent sideways, reaching her arm across the side of her face to stretch her obliques.
“The show supported Mack’s salary for many years,” she said. “Today, ad revenue is higher with me hosting. Twelve percent higher, in fact, but they want to pay me a fraction of what they paid Mack. Do they think I’m naive, or just really bad at math? Or is it because I’m a woman?”
Avery stood up and looked at her agent.
“My last episode killed. The ratings were off the charts in every demo. We ended the season on a high note, and we should strike while the iron’s hot. We have everything in our corner, all the bargaining chips.”
“Oh, you mean the episode when you allowed your insane producer to drop you to the bottom of a swimming pool in a minivan? That’s called a sweeps week stunt, and I forbid you from ever doing anything like it again. Keep pulling stunts like that and you won’t have any years in front of you—prime or otherwise.”
“It’s good to know you care so much, Dwight. I like this softer side of you, but I prefer the ruthless, deal-making agent who’s always had my back. Especially when you’re negotiating the most important contract of my career.”
“The network is not going to base your contract on sweeps week.”
“I’m not asking them to base it on sweeps. I’m asking them to base it on the entire last season. The numbers speak for themselves, from ratings to revenue.”
Over the past year, Avery had done a redesign of the classic newsmagazine show. The biggest difference between Avery and her competition? She never touched politics. The talking heads had that angle covered, and Avery didn’t have the stomach for it. She lightly covered current events and performed the obligatory interview with dignitaries when the present environment demanded it. But she allowed her co-anchors to cover the hard news of the day while Avery took on society’s nonpolitical topics. She had parlayed a journalism major into a law degree, and they each served her well in her role on American Events. Avery had a knack for sniffing out the truth when looking into a true-crime story, and the legal smarts to know when to hand her findings over to the authorities. One of her most-watched exposés covered the details of a missing toddler from Florida. Avery’s investigation—which included interviews with the parents, a deep forensic analysis of the case report, and the discovery of new information provided by the father—uncovered disturbing evidence that suggested the child had drowned while under the supervision of her grandmother, who then hid the child’s body in a shed behind her home. So startling were Avery’s discoveries and so vetted were her sources that the authorities took notice and reopened the case. American Events cameras rolled when police showed up at the grandmother’s house with search warrants and confirmed the tragic findings.
Over the past year her popular true-crime specials were legend, and her stories of hope and survival—from sinking a minivan into a pool in order to demonstrate how to escape, to jumping from an airplane to reveal the best way to recover from a failed parachute—drew viewers from all walks of life. Simply put, Avery Mason was redefining newsmagazine television and others were scrambling to keep up.
Her first contract with HAP News was a modest two-year deal that named her as a contributor to American Events. It allowed Avery to host several segments each season and occasionally fill in for Mack Carter when he took vacation time. Avery used those introductory years to get her feet wet and learn the business. Her rising popularity soon brought a more substantial contract that named her co-host of American Events. Mack Carter was the star, but Avery was earning a name for herself and finding an audience. When Mack died—a shocking event that stunned the nation—the network restructured Avery’s contract into a lucrative one-year deal that paid her half a million dollars as they scrambled for a permanent host. The future of AE was uncertain, and in that moment, Avery was an experiment. She was inexperienced and unproven. She was young and untested. She was, everyone believed, a temporary fix. But Avery Mason had proven them all wrong. She rose to the challenge and never balked.
A year later, she now boasted an impressive record of success during her stint as the face of American Events. She was no longer the new girl on the block. She was no longer hoping to break through and find an audience. She had found one, and they were devoted. She was established, she was polished, and she planned to etch her legacy into the framework of the network. Katie Couric-style. Diane Sawyer-esque. But only if she stayed strong during these negotiations and showed no sign of weakness. And, Avery was well aware, if she managed to keep her past from ruining it all. Because if there was one thing that spurred the public’s interest even more than watching the birth of a young starlet rising to fame, it was watching them fall from grace. Schadenfreude had become the new American pastime.
Avery walked over to Dwight. “I’m coming off a contract that by any measure was a bargain for HAP News. The bottom line is that with me as host American Events brought in revenues that were higher than any other show the network produced, and for the last year I’ve been one of the lowest paid anchors. David Hillary has made a killing off me. Now it’s time for him to pay me.”
Dwight took a deep breath. “Give me a number.”
“Seven figures.”
Dwight ran a hand over his bald head.
“It’s not an outrageous ask,” Avery said. “Not if you look at the numbers. And not just my numbers—ratings are up for the entire Friday night lineup because viewers stick around after AE is over.”
“If I go back to them with a counter that high, they’re going to want to know what they’re paying for.”
“They’re paying for me, and the audience I bring with me.”
“Content, my young and indestructible warrior. They’re going to ask what sort of content you have planned for the fall. You know, your second full season.” Dwight spread his hands and looked around. “A rehash of the Navy SEAL program is not going to cut it.”
“This is just for fun. And I’m going to do a lot more than rehash the SEAL program. I’m going to immerse myself in it. But that’s for later next year. For this coming fall, I’m sniffing a story that’s coming out of New York. It has to do with 9/11 and the timing is uncanny.”
“Give me some details. I’ll need ammunition if you’re sending me back to the table.”
“The medical examiner in New York just identified the remains of a victim who died in the World Trade Center attack. Twenty years later and they are still identifying victims. I’m heading to New York to look into the story.”
“Mason! You’re up. Let’s move!” a Navy commander yelled from the obstacle course starting line.
“Gotta run, D. Talk to Germaine and Hillary. Show them the numbers and remind them what a bargain I’ve been for the last year.”
Avery hustled to the starting line, got into her ready position, and took off toward the rope wall. She grabbed the knotted line and started her ascent.
“Shit,” Dwight said as he pulled his phone from the breast pocket of his unwrinkled suit.