Hawaii Five-0 season 8: CBS responds to Daniel Dae Kim statement, negotiation reports
In Kim’s message (which you can read more about over at the link here), the word “equality” seemed to be a reference to the claims that he and Park were not receiving equal pay with their co-stars Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan. Given that all four have been on the show since the beginning and receive ample screen time, all of this makes sense.
However, it doesn’t seem that their goal of equality was reached; in addition to Kim’s message, the network has also come under fire for allowing two of the show’s minority performers to leave over money. As a response to everything that’s happened, CBS did release a new statement this afternoon. Read below:
“Daniel and Grace have been important and valued members of Hawaii Five-0 for seven seasons. We did not want to lose them and tried very hard to keep them with offers for large and significant salary increases. While we could not reach an agreement, we part ways with tremendous respect for their talents on screen, as well as their roles as ambassadors for the show off screen, and with hopes to work with them again in the near future.”
Why did CBS even release a statement?
That’s a good question, since this doesn’t actually say anything that we didn’t already know. It was more than clear that the network wanted to keep Kim and Park on some level, and that they would give them salary increases, just not what they felt they should have this late in the series run. This is standard for performers once the first six or seven years of a contract are up. The issue here is more what they didn’t do to keep them more so than what they did.
Did they miscalculate? The show’s financials and budget aren’t public information, but it feels like a mistake given that the show will likely perform better with them than without them. For the amount of time it’s going to take the show to create that same chemistry with new actors, they really should’ve just paid out the money and gave everyone their weekly dose of TV Comfort Food (as we like to call it here at CarterMatt). That way viewers could continue to tune in every week and see the 4 main cast members working together seamlessly as a family and then go to bed at the end of the night satisfied.
We will continue to cover Hawaii Five-0 and enjoy the show very much — we don’t blame the cast or the producers for what happened — but it does feel like CBS squandered a good opportunity to show some good will to longtime cast members while also keeping fans happy. Neither part wanted to leave the show, and we certainly assume that the show makes plenty of money in between syndication, international airings, and all of the viewership that comes in via DVR or from streaming platforms. It’s also coming off of creatively its strongest season and one where it managed to perform even better than the year before. How many other shows did that happen with on network TV last year? Not many.
If you missed it, read Daniel’s statement
You can do that by heading over to the link here, and be sure to share what you think about CBS’ response now in the comments. (Photo: CBS.)