Noun
holding deal (plural holding deals)
(entertainment industry) An agreement made between a studio or network (or other similar entity) and a person, such as an actor, producer or writer, to hold the person to be exclusive to that entity for an agreed upon period of time, usually one year or "season", for an agreed-upon amount of money.
Basically, after an ABC sitcom I did, I ended up with a holding deal with 20th Century Fox. Absolutely cool. It pays you to be unemployed. And the bigger the entity that gives you the deal, the better. Nathan Fillion