My Studios

Cripes. And I thought the 2008 Golden Globes were a train wreck...

[From FOXNews.com:]

Fox411: Is ABC Trying to Kill the 2008 Oscars?

Is the alphabet network on a collision course to kill the Oscars next month?

It certainly seems like that’s the case after what ABC did on Friday.

The network — led by Robert Iger, who made $27 million last year according to reports — cancelled a dozen or so production deals with major TV producers late on Friday. The network used "act of God" contract provisions — meaning the WGA strike — to rid itself of deals with actor Taye Diggs of the show "Private Practice," "Borat" director Larry Charles, "Scrubs" creator Bill Lawrence, and many others.

One would think that if ABC wanted the Guild to allow a waiver for the Academy Awards on February 24th, the network wouldn’t be antagonizing writers.

But this huge, sweeping dismissal of a number of stars came off as an act of war, not conciliation. At this rate, the Oscars look doomed. Said one Academy insider last night: "You don’t know all the agendas going on here."

Maybe not, but at this rate, the TV networks are going to be running test patterns next fall.

My point. Apparently, someone over at the Alphanet has heard of Iosef Stalin's military doctrine of "scorched earth."

And then there's this nugget about the Globes and its masters, the Illuminati-esque Hollywood Foreign Press Association:

Golden Globes: No Tears for Odd Group

There will be no Golden Globes ceremony tonight in Hollywood, no parties, and, frankly, no tears for this strange group.

Indeed, it’s possible that the Hollywood Foreign Press — loathed by every legit person in the movie business — could be in financial trouble when all is said and done thanks to the Writers Guild strike.

Because the Globes will not have their annual TV show tonight on NBC, the HFPA will lose its $6 million fee paid to them by the network. They will also lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from the sales of tickets to their event at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

At the same time, though, because the HFPA decided not to go ahead with the show, but with a "press conference" at the Hilton, the group will still be stuck with bills for venue rental and security.

But don’t cry for the HFPA. They claim $15 million in assets on their most recent federal tax return. The group has socked away millions from the NBC deal over the years. And it hasn’t hurt that the movie and TV studios have been treating them to all kinds of graft over the years.

Last night, NBC Universal and Focus Features threw a special party at Spago Beverly Hills for the HFPA members. Very few celebrities showed up, but there were just enough — and just enough free food — to keep the Globists in good stead.

On Friday night, Miramax — that’s the newish Disney Miramax — did the same for the HFPA, putting the photo-op-hungry members in close proximity to their stars. Wouldn’t be it a coincidence if both Miramax and Focus wound up getting a lot of Golden Globes tonight?

Earlier on Saturday, at least four members of the HFPA were seen scarfing down sandwiches at BAFTA/LA’s British Academy Tea at the Bev Hills. This is funny considering no members of BAFTA/LA are allowed in the HFPA’s closed society of schnorrers.

I hear that next year, the HFPA is going to hold the Globes at a Panda Express. In the drive-thru lane. Winners to be announced in fortune cookies, along with winning lottery numbers.

Read FOXNews.com's coverage here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,322418,00.html

Or, don't. I don't care. Be that way.

I'll be commenting on the Golden Globe winners in another thread shortly.

I remain, as always...

Nico.

Wow. The writers' must feel like shit right about now. Everyone's mad at them for being the reason for no awards shows this year, and now their friends are getting fired because of all of this.

I'm starting to think they'll cave pretty soon.

Wow. The writers' must feel like shit right about now. Everyone's mad at them for being the reason for no awards shows this year, and now their friends are getting fired because of all of this.

Banks, m' boy, if there's one thing I know about Hollywood to a certainty, it's that most writers HAVE no friends. Not even other writers, since they all resent any of their colleagues' successes. Writers are resentful, hateful, antisocial beings, a little like cave trolls, but with far less sexual experience.

I'm starting to think they'll cave pretty soon.

Heh... "cave". I hope you're right, but, somehow, I doubt it. I think we've got a few months left to go before this thing resolves itself. I'll tell you one thing, any sympathy I ever had for the WGA -- and there was precious little in me to begin with -- has evaporated. When all the shows they used to write for have been cancelled, all the projects they were working on have been shelved, they'll be crying about how unfair it all is, that an entire industry got blown up because the world isn't always fair to THEM. And I bet that, once they abandon the picket lines, more than a few of 'em get taken in back and beat unrecognizeable by the stagehands, set designers, technical personnel and various other would-be gainfully employed professionals whose careers ended and whose homes were foreclosed on and whose kids' college funds got drained and who lost everything because of their whiny, ungrateful, sorry bitch asses.

I remain, as always...

Nico.

A friend asked me the other day who I thought would 'win' in the WGA strike. I told him nobody. He asked who would have to bend first and i said the writers, who quite frankly have sacrificed any public sympathy they might have initially had. Who will need money first: the writer with three kids or the multi-billion dollar corporation? The writers complain that the studios aren't negotiating in good faith *coughcough pot... kettle... coughcough* ... or at all -- they don't have to. The studios can rely on news programming, reality television, 'variety' shows (American Idol, gameshows, etc) the still largely untapped Sports staple and that doesn't even begin to worry them. So there won't be new shows. Boo hoo. The networks can fill massive amounts of programming just by being a little innovative and dipping into their programming libraries. You'll see entire series that have been gone and buried for years reappearing before you'll see a nickel of rights conceded to the writers. Or since all major major studios own the networks, they can always fall back on massive film libraries to fill broadcast slots. We'll all bitch and moan about there being nothing new but the studios don't have to concede or negotiate a thing until next year... when much of the production pipeline on the film and dvd end of the business has dried up. Will it ever get to that point? Probably not because most of the writers will have lost their homes by then. This will get ugly before it ever gets better.

A bright light: Some of the smaller production companies are trying to strike independent deals in the meantime because all the gaffers, grips, etc have their own families to feed. A larger deal will supersede these 'mean time' deals but at least concessions are being made on some level.

Boo... Hoo..
http://www.amptp.org/dollarsandsense.html

A_Roode:

A friend asked me the other day who I thought would 'win' in the WGA strike. I told him nobody.

You know, Roodey, that's just about the most accurate and concise opinion I've heard yet about this whole friggin' useless fiasco. Bravo, my friend, bravo.

Wikipedia -- consider the source -- has some interesting statistics about the LAST writer's guild strike, which went five months twenty years ago: It cost the U.S. entertainment industry $500 million in 1988 or, in today's dollars, $870 million. Just what our economy needs right now, with the housing market apocalypse and the credit crunch and gas at $3.50 a gallon and a gallon of milk costing nearly five bucks.

Not to mention, all those poor bastards who've been put out of work because of this impasse: makeup artists and gaffers and set designers and production assistants and film editors and cameramen and electricians and carpenters and costumers and parking lot attendants and key grips and best boys and studio security personnel and caterers, for starters. The numbers of foreclosures in Southern California this year are absolutely going to break records. Happy New Year.

NBC Nightly News is already putting losses for the 10 weeks of this work stoppage at $1 BILLION. And we're not even halfway to the length of the '88 strike, yet. Funny thing about that is, at some point, that number will begin rising exponentially, because it won't just be lost wages, but the cost of credit card defaults, home seizures, the cashing out of retirement funds and money-market accounts and life insurance policies and 401(k)s, and the loss of viability of long-term investments, like, say, the lost productivity of an entire production company that has to be shuttered permanently. One ancillary effect of this strike, which I bet hasn't been considered by the WGA, is that, if it drags on long enough, it will put a good many of the smaller production companies, particularly those used for television, completely out of business. That means more power in the hands of fewer people, and that all future television programming will be owned outright by the networks, which frankly doesn't serve the writers' long-term interests at all. Fewer production compaies means a tighter circle of possibility for the aspiring writer to pitch his or her ideas to; it means tighter control of the indutry by those with the deepest pockets, the most scrupulous accountants and the best attorneys, which is to say, the major studios. It means a more risk-averse industry which won't be inclined to take chances on radical, innovative ideas from unknowns. It means fewer doors to bang on, fewer secretaries to leave messages with, fewer addresses to send unsolicited scripts to. It means less opportunity. My guess is, the younger, less powerful members of the WGA haven't really grasped this concept. It reminds me of that famous FARK headline from last year: Community outreach program to offer $100 for every loaded handgun turned in up to 250 firearms. The first person to think this through will collect $25,000.

Wow, congratulations! Fantasy Moguls may be the first place I've found where sentiment is so overwhelmingly on the side of the studios. Sure, support for the writers is flagging as this thing seems to have no end in sight, but it's rare to find such anti-writer attitudes.

We deal with labor issues occasionally in my line of work and (speaking subjectively) I can't think of another labor problem where one side is so obviously right, in this case the writers. Their demands are more than reasonable. And while it sucks that others have lost their jobs, it's part of the risk of working in the entertainment industry. The unemployed key grips should be just as mad at the studios for attempting to drive such a hard bargain. And no, no one is going to be dragged backstage and beaten up.

But I also don't think the studios are so firmly situated that they can just wait this out or that the situation is so dire that the industry will collapse so a new era of entertainment business models will be ushered in as you guys seem to think. It'll be years before the studios will be able to create a season of tv shows with scab writers. And TV is where the studios have problems. They may have movies in the pipeline but they're getting killed on TV. The strike will end, they always do. When is the question.

And regarding Nico's suggestion of competing unions, I see it far more likely that smaller studios will break away from the AMPTP. Several have spoken up to say the AMPTP's bargaining doesn't reflect their views. Anyway, the existence of the AMPTP is just as anti-competitive as the WGA.

glebe: I get what you're saying, really I do, and also understand I may have ruffled your feathers a bit with my hard-line attitude toward the WGA. Let me clarify, in case my mouth (well, fingers) ran ahead of my brain and heart, earlier (it happens). I'm for fair and just compensation in EVERY workplace, for EVERY job, in ALL circumstances. But -- and it's possible I simply have an inexact grasp of the situation, here; after all, I don't live in Hollywood... matter of fact, in America at least, I reside in about the farthest place from, socially and politically: North Texas -- as I understand it, it was the WGA who "blew up" the situation, by stalking out of talks with the 400 or so content producers and implementing the walkout. Now, I don't have a lot of respect for ANYBODY who will hold an entire industry, and the livelihoods of frankly hundreds of thousands of their colleagues, and actually an entire regional economy, HOSTAGE to their own (inevitably) narrow, parochial, self-interested demands. This work stoppage isn't merely an inconvenience to all those (largely, less well-compensated and less powerful) professionals and skilled laborers I rattled off a couple posts back; THIS IS THEIR LIVES. I admit, I live in a fairly affluent neighborhood, but even I can't imagine many of my neighbors being unemployed for months on end, in an industry where there's no immediate hope of alternative short-term employment and income, in a region where the cost of living is already the highest in the Hemisphere, from top to bottom. Nobody's THAT far ahead, anymore; everyone, from $18,000-a-year restaurant workers to $300,000-a-year corporate tax attorneys, lives, more or less, paycheck-to-paycheck these days. That legend about putting six months' expenses back for a rainy day is just that: a myth. No one can get out from behind the eight-ball enough to make that happen, anymore, not in our debt-and-consumption-driven economy.

However, I digress.

Like it or not, the striking WGA members ARE responsible for what's happening, because their intractibility at the bargaining table created this situation, and they alone enacted its most harmful phase: the walkout. And they SHOULD feel terrible for the pain they're inflicting on others. I'm not just talking about being behind in your bills or having to cut off the satellite television subscription or turning in that leased Mercedes S-class for a Ford Focus having your credit rating damaged. I'm talking about the inevitable stress, the loss of peace of mind and self-worth, that accomplanies prolonged unemployment: how it comes out in peoples' personal lives, in finding refuge in drink and drugs... or taking it out on the ones you love, like your spouse and kids, in the form of abuse of one kind or another... suicide, even. This is not a victimless "crime." Far from it, in fact. As Gandhi said, "Poverty is the worst kind of violence." These countless, unnamed thousands I'm talking about may not be on the streets, yet, but they're certainly being pushed in that direction, and all because the WGA decided to flex their muscles and bring the studios to their knees. Well, as you've pointed out, it won't be the studios who are REALLY hurt by this foolishness; it's their fellow man, many of whom may well be broken by it. Because the fact of the matter is, NOT ALL OF THESE JOBS ARE COMING BACK. The longer this strike drags on, the smaller the industry will become, at least temporarily (and I'm not talking about weeks or months, there, but years, probably).

I don't support teachers, police officers, firefighters, railroad employees or doctors who walk out; as I said, I didn't support the Air Traffic Controllers when they brought the nation's transportation system to a groundstop twenty-odd years ago. We are all, like it or not, interdependent on each other, and I for one find it hard to rationalize bringing my fellow man low, or to ruin, simply because I'm not living as "high" as I could, or because the world isn't completely fair to me. This isn't about writers having their compensation REDUCED, after all; it's about how much they GAIN, that they're not getting right now. This isn't about taking a pay cut, it's squabbling about the amount of a (earned, admittedly) raise. Here's what I know: I've held several corporate jobs. If I tried to hold my employer's feet to the fire because I was dissatisfied about what they offered me in elevating my compensation, I'd be out of a job within about twenty minutes, and I'd have no one to blame but my own foolish, self-destructive self. The WGA may well be in the "right," here, but that doesn't make what they're DOING, "right."

But, look, you're entitled to your opinion. I'd love to see the WGA get what they deserve. Workers of the world, unite, and all that. (Dyslexics of the world, untie!) I'd just like it better if they didn't have to hurt so many people to acquire it.

We can agree on this much at least: Let's pray, or hope, it ends soon.

I remain, as always...

Rabid capitalist pig-dog compassionless corporate mercenary Devil whore.

P.S. I agree with your prediction about the AMPTP getting blown up. It's certainly looking like that may happen. Soon.

It's not like the writers didn't get everything they wanted and walked out in a huff. Negotiations had been ongoing, they felt like the studios weren't making a good effort to bargain (I say we want so much, you say you'll give so much, we'll meet in the middle), so they struck, which is really the only tool anyone has in a labor negotiation: pay me or I'll leave.

Probably in hindsight the strike may have been something of a strategic mistake. I'll bet if both sides knew the strike would last this long they would've made a lot more effort to at least do enough good-faith bargaining to avoid a strike, even if that would have meant working without a contract for a while.

Like it or not, the striking WGA members ARE responsible for what's happening, because their intractibility at the bargaining table created this situation, and they alone enacted its most harmful phase: the walkout.

Regardless of which side you support, I don't think it would be accurate to say that it was the writers' intractability that caused the strike. On point after point the argument came down to the writers saying "we want something," the studios say "we offer you nothing," and the sides being unable to come to an agreement somewhere in the middle of something and nothing. They both were intractable.

And so a strike happened. It's not just the writers' fault that so many people are not working because they called the strike, it's just as much the studios' fault for not moving their position enough to avoid a strike. A strike doesn't happen because workers declare it to be so, it happens because workers and corporate cannot meet eye to eye. From there we can each assign moral culpability (and clearly we fall on different sides in this instance) but neither side can ever throw up their hands and realistically say, "We did all that we could!"

Here, the studios could have easily avoided the strike and kept all those fine people in their jobs, but they thought the costs of doing so were too high. Holding their line on their bargaining position was more important to them than avoiding a strike and keeping all their employees working. Simply the other side to the same coin.

And in your corporate job you should be getting in your employer's face if you're dissatisfied with your compensation, just don't accept it passively. You have a value and if your employer isn't meeting that value, tell them to or find someone who will. And if you find yourself in a position that they would be royally screwed if you were to leave, damn straight you should exploit that.

Finally one small point about arguing about pay raises: everyone in the entertainment industry sees revenues moving to different media, particularly the internet. As revenue shifted from syndication to video/DVD, writers saw their incomes decline. As revenues shift further to internet, writers will again see their incomes decline unless the royalty scale is set. Over time we really are talking about actual wage cuts. The writing staff for The Office put together a series of webcasts for the summer of 2006 featuring the show's accountant characters. The webcasts won an Emmy. But the writers got paid nothing for them. Zero. The webcasts are ad supported and made NBC money but writers got nothing for their work. That's a pay cut and it's the future as more revenue moves to the web.
^^
But that's more of an ideological, specific argument as opposed to my rambling thought on the nature of labor economics above. (I'm an economist, waxing philosophically on labor movements is par for the course.)

glebe: I didn't know you were an economist... Cool! (You make any money doing that? [Grin] No... seriously.)

Reading your rebuttal, one question kept going through my mind: Has ANYONE been willing to engage in binding arbitration? I mean, it's California... Isn't it REQUIRED? (By law?)

Probably in hindsight the strike may have been something of a strategic mistake. I'll bet if both sides knew the strike would last this long they would've made a lot more effort to at least do enough good-faith bargaining to avoid a strike, even if that would have meant working without a contract for a while.

[Nodding] Here, at least, you and I are in complete agreement. Also about it being a "strategic mistake"... Fair or not, the American public tends to forgive corporations very quickly -- has ANYONE, ever seen a corporate boycott work in this country? -- but can harbor resentment against individuals (and, I daresay, unions) for years...

Regardless of which side you support, I don't think it would be accurate to say that it was the writers' intractability that caused the strike. On point after point the argument came down to the writers saying "we want something," the studios say "we offer you nothing," and the sides being unable to come to an agreement somewhere in the middle of something and nothing.

I support fair compensation for all. Fact is, NOBODY in Hollywood is getting paid right now, and that's not fair. Someone needs to swallow their damn pride, make a phone call, and open their friggin' ears. Unfortunately, in this sort of "game," whoever comes to their senses first, LOSES. And everyone knows it.

No one wants to admit when they've reached their "squeal point." As a result, this may very well go very, very far beyond that point.

Someone needs to be taped to a chair and shown a DVD of WarGames. When you blow up the world, EVERYONE LOSES.

They both were intractable. [My emphasis]

Well, I can't argue that, pal. Point conceded.

It's not just the writers' fault that so many people are not working because they called the strike, it's just as much the studios' fault for not moving their position enough to avoid a strike.

[Grumble] I disagree, that sounds an awful lot like, It's her fault I raped her, she shoulda known better to me.

And so a strike happened.

Again, I disagree. Weather "happens." An earthquake "happens." Shit "happens." This was CAUSED. INTENTIONALLY. DELIBERATELY. (By whom? You ask. Well, funny you should mention that...)

A strike doesn't happen because workers declare it to be so, it happens because workers and corporate cannot meet eye to eye.

Unsurprisingly, I have a differing point of view. I don't think too many workers EVER make the decision to go out on strike. Oh, I know. They vote on it. But there's more than a little coercion going on, there, and ultimately the will of the union reflects the will of that union's (elected, it's true) white-collar, limo-driven, attorney-counseled leadership. Time after time, I've seen working stiffs pay the price for their labor leaders' power plays. I'm not saying they don't think they have their union's best interests at heart. I'm not that cynical. But, they figure, a union needs leadership, and men (and women) value three things: Spirit, steadfastness, and sacrifice. Union leaders who piss on The Man's shoes earn the respect, admiration and loyalty of their workers, who keep them in power so they can keep doing "the people's work." Put another way, the labor leader least willing to compromise ends up being the leader labor wants MOST. It was true seventy years ago in the heyday of James R. Hoffa; it's still true today.

A labor leader who is seen to be sacrificing THEIR paycheck, right along with "the guys," is just about the most powerful non-Government individual in this country, I find. That's why the same twelve men keep getting elected, decade after decade, to the most important union leadership positions in the nation. They've earned the respect of their men (and, you know), through pushing corporations to the breaking point and pulling entire industries apart, all while walking the pickets next to the guy earning $18.50 an hour.

What's the saying? Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's not always intentional, only insidious.

But, it's entirely possible I have a rather simplistic and fragile grasp of the situation.

...[T]he studios could have easily avoided the strike and kept all those fine people in their jobs, but they thought the costs of doing so were too high. Holding their line on their bargaining position was more important to them than avoiding a strike and keeping all their employees working. Simply the other side to the same coin.

I'm glad you mentioned that. The flip side to that coin is, the WGA could have easily avoided the strike by... not striking. Note, I didn't say, "cave." Reach a temporary agreement, say, 90 days, allowing everybody to keep working while discussions continued. That shows they're dealing in good faith and not merely smacking the self-destruct button whenever they fail to get their way. Then, as I said before, submit to binding arbitration (more proof of good faith!) and challenge the other side to do the same. Then they (the WGA) get the public squarely on their side, and the AMPTP look like a bunch of greedy uptight immovable right bleedin' bastards, which, of course, they are.

And in your corporate job you should be getting in your employer's face if you're dissatisfied with your compensation, just don't accept it passively. You have a value and if your employer isn't meeting that value, tell them to or find someone who will. And if you find yourself in a position that they would be royally screwed if you were to leave, damn straight you should exploit that.

[Laughing] Damn, glebe, but I do admire your pluck. But, newsflash: "getting in your employer's face" earns you no respect or consideration or concessions, only a quick trip flanked by security down the hall, then the elevator, and finally the front steps, where some pretty young secretary with a sympathetic smile meets you five minutes later with all your shit in a cardboard Staples box. This is a right-to-work state, like MOST states, which in reality means, right-to-render-yourself-unemployed-by-getting-froggy, pal. High-minded temerity is fine and dandy when you're standing in front of your mirror shaving, but when faced with the cold, hard fact that very nearly everyone is replaceable by a recent college grad at 1/3 the salary; and that even if you're really, really, demonstrably NOT replaceable, employers have pride, too, and they'll tell you to shit in your shoes and fuck off even if that means a minor third-quarter loss in department productivity while they outsource your job to Bangladesh; and the even colder, harder fact that later this afternoon, while you're strutting and preening and impressing your friends down at the local watering hole with your heroic tale of how you told the Boss to pay up or piss off, you won't be earning any money to pay the mortgage, or child support, or your water bill, or to take your hot date out to dinner and a movie, well, that momentary lapse of reason looks a Helluva lot less like righteous indignation, and more like abject fucking stupidity and commensurate, immediate unemployability, followed soon after by total bankruptcy.

Fact is, I'm a fairly bright guy, and hard-working, and dedicated, and diligent, and creative, and oh by the way educated, and I even look pretty damn sharp in a Brooks Brothers two-button, if I do say so myself, and even with all THAT going for me, I haven't yet been in a job outside of the military or academia where I was absolutely, undeniably, inarguably irreplaceable. On the contrary, in eight or nine years, all told, in the private sector since 1998, I've found myself FREQUENTLY, eminently, conspicuously, invariably, even maddeningly, superfluous, never more than a few months from the possibility of being succeeded by a 22-year-old, or a foreigner, or an advanced computer subroutine, or a red Swing-line stapler, or, for all I know, a potted fern.

As it turns out, "I'm mad as Hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" only ever really works in the movies. Dammit.

Which is all to say, this is why I'm getting my advanced degree and teaching college (part-time). Even as an academia nut, I may not be uniquely special, but at least I'll be tenured.

But, as much as we disagree, it's a heckuva debate, glebe, and I thank you for participating in it. You have given me much to think about. ...And then, dismiss, utterly, sure, but I thought about it first. [Sarcastic grin]

FOXNews.com has a piece on this ongoing saga that makes for some interesting reading... Enjoy:

Hollywood Needs Ending to Confused Story

What will happen with the Hollywood strike of the Writers Guild of America?

Right now, the story in Hollywood is as confusing as a "Mission: Impossible" movie. No one knows what the outcome will be of a strike that began on Oct. 31. Yet everyone has a different idea.

Listening to all the opinions reminds me of the summer when everyone was guessing Who Shot JR?

All of the scenarios revolve around one thing: the Oscars, set for Feb. 24. Producer Gil Cates insists they will happen, one way or another. But down deep, everyone knows this is not possible. If the strike is still in place, then the Guild will picket, the Screen Actors will respect that and no one will be there except members of the Hollywood Foreign Press.

Some insiders are hoping that the Directors Guild will announce a new contract with the studios on Wednesday or Thursday. That, they say, will force the WGA to accept similar terms and return to work.

Here’s how one big insider explained it to me Tuesday night: The DGA settles, and then it takes two to three weeks for the WGA to reach the same conclusion.

"We’ll throw them a bone," says this studio insider, "so they save face." The idea here is that by Feb. 15, Wolfgang Puck is minting his chocolate Oscars and Vanity Fair is already ordering In-N-Out Burgers for its party.

However: there is also speculation that the WGA, having successfully shut down the Golden Globes, is not going to pass up a chance to do the same with the Oscars. After all, the WGA has gone this far, say some local philosophers. They’re not going to back down so fast.

Of course, then there is the issue of financial pressure. There is talk of writers in danger of losing their homes. People are suffering, and not only in the union. The strike creates a domino affect. Truthfully, the town is silent. You can hear the wind whistling down Wilshire Boulevard.

"You can get a reservation in any restaurant," one agent said on Tuesday.

At Wanna Buy a Watch, the great second-hand timepiece and jewelry shop on Melrose, my friends there say Christmas wouldn’t have happened if not for foreigners. The clock is literally ticking now.

On the picket line near Warner Bros. in Burbank, I heard plenty of conflicting opinions the other day. Older writers are in it for the long haul. They have enough savings, and they know how important it is to get the new media payments sorted out.

Younger writers are not so sure. They’re just starting out, and they’re not so well-paid in the first place. Impatient to earn a living and sell some projects, the new generation doesn’t care much about the Internet. It’s ironic, because you’d think they would understand its grasp all the more.

Some writers have gone back to work anyway. At low-rated ABC soap "All My Children," I am told all the writers went "fi-core" and took a package that allowed them to return to business. This is frowned upon, and the soap scribes are unpopular. (CBS’ "Guiding Light," on the other hand, is on strike. Scabs are writing scripts.)

And the estimates of an ending? "April," says one writer. "July," says another. "Mid-February," answers my studio guy.

One thing’s for certain, though. If the writers give on new media, just as Apple announces movie downloading and Amazon revs up its own site, the movie and TV businesses could end up like the music business: dead.

Somebody else say something, even I get tired of my own bullshit sometimes. (Not often enough, I grant you...)

I remain, as always...

Nico.

Glebe - I think you are taking the arguments here wrong in think we are wholly "siding" with the studios. I think everyone can agree bad decisions have been made on both sides, and its a lose/lose situation no matter the outcome.
Do writers have a right to the online revenues from the shows and movies they write? HELL YES!
Does getting that warrant stopping negotiation and walking off the job? Hell no.
As Nico so insightfully brought up, in the end it is the union leadership that decides to strike not the individual members. And for the most part it is people who already have money, wanting more, and seeing a major resource they can tap into to achieve that.
This is not going to be something easily sorted out, I can't honestly say I know what the best way they should have handled it, but it certainly shouldn't have been walking away. Best case would likely be *years* of working through agreements, as this isn't going to happen quickly, but the strike is just going to prolong that or result one side getting a raw deal because they were forced to cave by the strike (and it really could go either way at this point).

I think we are in agreement with what needs to happen, but disagree with the writers in how they are attempting to achieve that.

Strikes are a tool. A very drastic tool, yes, which is why they happen so infrequently. But without strikes there could be no negotiations because labor would have no bargaining power. I have a hard time defining strikes as intrinsically wrong because without them there could never be negotiations. Of course, each case is different and the decision to strike can be wrong (a case might be the NYC transit strike a few years back), but a strike is not in itself wrong. All a worker has as a bargaining chip is the ability to withhold labor and I won't judge them for the act of exercising that power.

I think this is a strange case because one small percentage of the industry has the ability to shut the entire industry down by striking. It gives the writers a lot of bargaining power, but they have that power because they have value. Perhaps they overvalue themselves and overplayed their bargaining position. Perhaps the studios undervalue the writers and underestimated the writers' bargaining position. On the flip side, studios have bargaining power by having the ability to not pay the workers, either through not meeting their demands or locking them out. At some point it will all reach an equilibrium.

It's also a weird case because it concerns creative property, which is treated differently than, say, an engineer designing something for his firm.

So there's my impassioned defense of striking, in general terms. And in this particular case, looking at the specific issues, I don't, at this point, fault the writers for deciding a strike was their best move. Currently the writers get a significantly smaller proportion of DVD sales than the designers of the DVD's packaging- something is clearly wrong here and the studios were refusing to fix it.

And yeah, I wouldn't get into your boss's face. Tact is key! I just meant when compensation is discussed, fight for what you deserve; you don't have to accept the 1% raise if it doesn't reflect your market value (and of course value encompasses more than just money). But the key is to know your value and it sounds like in your line of work, Nico, the value of experience is declining.

Value value value value. Value. Have I said value yet? I like that word. It's also what I think Fantasy Moguls is all about: finding value.

Anyway, there was some talk a few weeks back about both sides getting new negotiators. I don't know if anything came of it but it'd probably help. The sides are at each others' throats but the negotiators truly, personally despise each other and then it risks becoming a battle of personal egos instead of a negotiation. I'll bet the WGA heads want Nick Counter of the AMPTP to suffer as much as they want a contract, and vice versa.

You are far too idealistic for this world Glebe. If you truly believe people are compensated for their work value, Nurses and Teachers would be some of the highest paid professions rather than the lowest paid.
Echoing Nico, experience does have its place and its value - but only in cases where you have literally made yourself irreplacable. If you are even remotely replacable, and you push your boss, they will have no problem dropping you for someone fresh out of college.

If you're easily replaceable, that's a sign that there's not much difference between your value and your compensation and that you shouldn't push it. (And by value I'm speaking of market value, not value to society. Hence how teachers and nurses get so little and NFL players get so much.)

Anyway, the DGA reached a deal with the AMPTP today. If the framework is something the WGA can live with perhaps the strike will be over soon. But the DGA is notoriously less militant than the SAG or WGA (most of its members aren't first directors and are therefore ineligible for residuals and most don't live off residuals) so it may have struck a soft deal compared to what the SAG and WGA want.

eta- Looks like a mixed bag. WGA will be happy that the DGA deal includes residual calculations off the distributor's gross instead of producer's gross (which the studios are notorious for cooking the books on). This was one of the points the AMPTP said was non-negotiable in the WGA talks and part of the reason the AMPTP has refused to negotiate at all for the last 40+ days. Why'd they go through the trouble and histrionics of unilaterally shutting down talks just to cave so quickly to the DGA on this?

But the rates for streaming and download are very low and apparently the actors will not be happy with that.

Catching up (gradually) after being out-of-pocket for several days...

Interesting storylet on IMDb today --

Strike Will Be Felt for Months, Say Reports

Despite renewed optimism about a resolution of the Hollywood writers' strike following last week's agreement with the Directors Guild, signs continued to appear that the TV and film industries would continue to suffer financial hardship for months to come, if not longer. Over the weekend, CBS said that it had dropped about 20 projects that were being readied for pilot production. In a statement, the network said, "Due to the ongoing writers strike, our development needs for the upcoming pilot season have changed, and we have released some comedy and drama scripts." And the London Financial Times reported that NBC Universal CEO is planning to eliminate the pilot season and the "upfront" pre-season presentation of the network's shows to advertisers. "Things like that are all vestiges of an era that's gone by and won't return," [President & CEO of NBC Universal Jeffrey] Zucker told the newspaper. Plans for the upcoming Grammy and Oscar awards remained up in the air, with few people willing to predict that, even under the best of circumstances, the strike could be settled before those awards shows take place.

Hmm. Shades here of what I had to say back on January 16:

...[It] won't be the studios who are REALLY hurt by this foolishness; it's their fellow man, many of whom may well be broken by it. Because the fact of the matter is, NOT ALL OF THESE JOBS ARE COMING BACK. The longer this strike drags on, the smaller the industry will become, at least temporarily (and I'm not talking about weeks or months, there, but years, probably).

Great googly-moogly, people. Even I didn't think the landscape would shift this quickly, or dramatically. The New York upfronts are to network affiliates and advertisers (corporations being the real money behind, and therefore the ultimate reason FOR, broadcast network television in the first place) what the Oscar nominations are to creative Hollywood: As close to a raison d'être as there is in the business. For those not familiar with the network business model, it's like this: Upfronts are held near the end of May sweeps, and it's when the networks roll out their prospective Fall schedules to the public. This is also when network affiliates and corporate advertisers get to check out each season's offerings, which affects bottom-line variables like whether a financially strapped affiliate stays with the network, or changes hats or goes it alone... and how much a network can charge for a 30-second spot for its new Wednesday night primetime anchor. For a seasoned industry veteran like Jeff Zucker -- the head of one of the three premiere networks in this country, an influential man just about any way you slice it -- to use such ominous and inflammatory rhetoric as that, calling the seasonal network upfronts (an event only marginally less predictable than the summer solstice) "[the] vestige...of an era that's gone by and won't return," well, that's a little like calling the presidential primaries part of the old world order, forever consigned to the dustbin of history. (We wish!)

This is all my way of saying that it's possible -- just possible -- that the WGA strike won't go down in the almanac as a merely inconvenient work stoppage, or even as a one-time speed bump that temporarily caused one of America's largest industries to give back ground. Zucker may well be exercising his First Amendment right to engage in spuriously irresponsible and enormously exaggerated hyperbole. Then again, maybe he's right, and we're witnessing the end of an entire industry's business model.

How far could this go? If the networks and netlets abandon the upfront as their annual one-stop shopping center for plotting advertiser revenues and thereby determining their annual budgets -- which affects things like how many shows are put into production, the staff size and quality of those shows, the degree of their risk-acceptant or -aversedness, and how many independent production companies are currently viable economic entities in the industry -- how will they determine potential revenues in future? Could commercials as we know them give way en masse to whole-program sponsorships by a single corporate entity? Might the industry grow enormously reliant on product placement to defray program production expenses? Are we to return to the halcyon days of explicit corporate underwriting of network programming, as in, The Texaco Star Theater? Or, is it possible that future television advertising revenue will be determined, literally, from moment to moment, with networks abandoning fixed, seasonal pricing and moving to a more dynamic paradigm?

This isn't mere theoretical gobbledygook. Such things matter, because, in business as in all things, what's new isn't always what's best. (Just ask the good folks behind New Coke, or Caddyshack II, or The CBS Evening News.) If Zucker's correct -- if his de facto pronouncement of the impending death of network television's standard business model turns out to be prescient, and not foolhardy or disingenuous -- then the future could be very, very bleak indeed for the broadcast networks, whose control, relevance and market shares have been steadily eroding for twenty years and whose very survival may now be in question. That won't be the end of teevee -- far from it, the death knell of the Big Four as they are currently structured might very well liberate television as a communications technology and creative medium in much the same way as the 1984 breakup of Ma Bell ushered in the wireless revolution, with all its myriad miracles: affordable mobile phones, PDAs, OnStar, GPS-enabled navigation systems and, of course, the iPhone. On the other hand, however, it COULD lead to a rapidly dissolving revenue stream that might bring about a fundamental, wholesale renovation in how content comes to air -- who owns it, funds it, exploits it and, ultimately, profits from it (or hopes to).

However, I digress.

I read an interesting article on the front page of The New York Times Business section while I was in the Apple -- didn't save it, it must have got left in a Starbucks or NYCTaxi at some point -- about the two men at the forefront of the WGA and its decision to strike, namely, WGA West president Patric Verrone (formerly a writer for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Pinky and the Brain, The Critic, The Simpsons and Futurama -- and the union's chief negotiator, David Young -- who came to the WGA from the garment and construction industries, and who knows about as much about Hollywood as I do about superstring theory (it has something to do with yarn, right? Or, cheese). I initially posited that the WGA was in all likelihood headed up by some fatcat professional do-nothings sucking liberally off the teat of honest, dues-paying working men, who didn't give a fiddler's damn for the chaos they were fomenting and who had their own best interests, and not the union membership's, at heart. I owe these two men an apology. I now believe they're well-intentioned, in many respects forward-looking but disastrsouly naive and underequipped schmucks, who are gullibly being led down a primrose path into the welcoming jaws of ignominy, self-destruction and eventual unemployment by the far more patient, cunning, experienced minds behind the AMPTP. These starry-eyed dolts, in overplaying their hand, have played straight into those of the corporations that really run Hollywood, and who can afford to watch their industry implode and literally thousands of careers get extinguished, knowing full well that at some point the union will reach its squeal point and cave, and that Young and Verrone will find themselves not only thrown out of the WGA's front office, but, very likely, Hollywood itself. Poor bastards, they must not play chess, or at least not very well... or else they'd have realized long ago that even the most aggressive, well-conceived, multidimensional offensive can easily be pushed too far, at which point it crumbles under the weight of its own vanity and exposes the player's flank, allowing the defender to pluck the heart right out of the overzealous neophyte's chest and show it to him. ALL SWORDS ARE DOUBLE-EDGED; today's thrilling lunge all too quickly develops into tomorrow's killing riposte, only this time, it's you on the floor, leaking precious fluids into the woodgrain. Despite glebe's arguments to the contrary, I submit that a strike is no intellectual strategem, no nimble parry; it is, in point of fact, that most blunt of instruments, subtle as a cudgel: the bluff. Strikers represent themselves as being willing to walk away from employment altogether, wagering that their own financial security is stronger than that of the entities that hire them. Good luck with that. Somehow, I doubt we'll be seeing the heads of Paramount or Sony or Universal or Warner's standing on line for bread anytime soon. The only-occasionally-employed writers, on the other claw...

One last thing, glebe, and I hope I don't say this too callously -- you're a good sport, after all, and I have appreciated your insight and candor -- but your grasp of the vagaries of the modern workplace seems to me just a touch academic, somewhat clinical, and altogether ungrounded in anything even remotely approaching reality. You talk of "market value" and "fair compensation" as if the entire world and all relationships therein exist within the predictable, controllable confines of a supply and demand graph. Unfortunately, as you alluded to in your first post of January 17, egos and pride and sheer, stupid thick-headedness enter into these sorts of "negotiations" far more than any idyllic calculation of the price elasticity of demand, or the Giffen good, or a Pareto imptovement, or the airspeed velocity of an African swallow, or what have you. The fact is, in the messy, maddening, often flat-out nonsensical world beyond the comfortable boundaries of the chalkboard, the Nash equilibrium model or the PowerPoint projection, people -- and the corporations they control -- often act AGAINST their own best interests, and I haven't yet encountered a Prisoner's Dilemma that accounted for personal motivations like greed, embarrassment, intransignence, apathy or just good, old-fashioned fuckupedness. Keynesian economics and Bellman equations and game theories notwithstanding, the world I inhabit is full of infinitely far more complex, mysterious and frankly stupefying forces than can be found in even the most sophisticated computer modelling -- you think projecting the path of a hurricane is impossible, try working out the infinite permutations, variables and possible outcomes involved in asking your do-nothing, dickheaded boss for a raise you earned under your LAST do-nothing, dickheaded boss, for example. Put another way: relationships among PEOPLE in modern business are far more likely to make sense when viewed in the context of futility, than utility. Or, if you prefer: When it comes to the REAL world -- the one I exist in -- John Maynard Smith was DEAD WRONG: signals, as it were, are rarely honest and almost never cost-free; the REAL "handicap principle" is, standing on principle is likely as not to leave you handicapped, when it comes to "demanding" fair compensation and attempting to leverage your ostensible usefulness against a corporation that frankly values you far less than the high-speed copier you use every afternoon. If the land you inhabit is fairer and more comprehensible, more power to you, but I rather suspect it's designed by Milton Bradley and includes places like Gum Drop Mountain and enemies no more substantial than Gloppy the Molasses Monster.

Sorry, my friend, but I find myself in agreement with becs on this one: your idealism, while certainly informed and educated and actually very, very tempting as a personal ideology, has virtually zero bearing on any real-world dynamic I can think of that involves human egos and emotions, and not merely quantifiable figures, statistics and trend lines. I am, thankfully, no longer part of the corporate world, and so I am for the moment happy to delude myself into thinking that I've left such concerns behind. But for the decade, more or less, that I was, I can tell you sincerely that your quaint, clinical formulas of value and demand and utility and equilibrium would have far less bearing on whether I actually RECEIVED that well-deserved bump in salary, than whether I'd managed to effectively brownnose the right manager and how well I got along with the efficiency experts over drinks that one night at Dave & Buster's, or how much I'd been able to bullshit everyone that I could leave at any moment and hang out a shingle and tell the whole corporate world to fuck themselves and their mothers, too, or if I'd used enough "impact phrases" on my last self-written performance review to warrant a second look by the CPAssholes upstairs.

Anyway, glebe, sorry if I insulted you or was a dick about this -- it happens. I've had the better part of a week to sit and think and stew over this, and, well, I'm just not always a nice guy. But I mean what I've said: I appreciate your thoughts, and I have taken them under advisemement, and I'd like to think I've learned something from you -- if only that the world isn't as rational or pretty or perfect as it appears sometimes from the theoretical side of things. It's actually a pretty timely lesson for me, as I'm embarking on a new career as an educator: Logic, as it were, is the beginning of reason, not its end. (Sorry: Gratuitous Trek reference, there.)

So, there we are. Good on ya, glebe, I've really enjoyed sparring with you. [Grin] No hard feelings?

I remain, as always...

Nico.

My Studios

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