The producers Corday Productions of Days of Our Lives seen in South Africa on e.tv, is suing Sony Pictures Television, alleging that Corday has been cheated out of millions of dollars through deliberate neglect of the show in favour of The Young and the Restless when it comes to international distribution deals.
While Days of Our Lives was renewed for a 55th season in January 2019 on the NBC network in the United States, Corday Productions has started a lawsuit against Sony Pictures Television, including its Columbia Pictures and Screen Gems divisions.
Corday Productions alleges that Sony has hugely disadvantaged Days of Our Lives when it comes to international distribution - the audience, like in South Africa, seeing the weekday soap outside of the United States - and the money earned from these deals.
Deadline reports that Corday Productions claims that Sony that also distributes and fully-owns the other remaining American weekday soap, The Young and the Restless, has allegedly been favouring Y&R economically over Days when negotiating international syndication deals.
Sony TV didn't respond to a request for comment.
Corday Productions alleges that Sony Pictures Television left Days of Our Lives "completely unexploited for over five years".
"While the domestic ratings for Days of our Lives have remained largely constant, Sony's distribution receipts have decreased by over 50%," reads Corday's 33-page complaint it filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court.
"This dramatic decline is directly attributable to a decision at the highest levels of Sony management to eliminate any competition to its own wholly-owned series The Young and the Restless, also distributed by Sony".
"In the annals of Hollywood television, it is difficult to identify a distributor more guilty of blatant conflict of interest, deceit, perfidy, and abuse of market power. The only effective remedies are massive compensatory and punitive damages and immediate termination Sony's exclusive, perpetual distribution agreement," says Corday Productions.
Corday further alleges that Sony's is damaging Corday's income from Days for having failed to license the soap in "key foreign territories, including England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Canada, France, Zambia, and South Africa".
Days of Our Lives is however licensed in South Africa to e.tv after it the soap was dropped by the SABC on SABC3 in mid-2018.
Corday Productions further says that Sony Pictures Television is "enforcing its power of the show by imposing solely on Corday the burden of absorbing the multi-million dollar annual operating deficits due to an inadequate NBC license fee and mandating an inefficient, costly production schedule".
