The Hot Blog

« Interesting... | Main | Sunday Estimates by Klady - Dec 9 »

December 08, 2007

Stating The Obvious

The AMPTP is not going to settle the WGA strike the week before the two goes on two weeks-plus vacation.

Yes, it will be a way of hurting writers' mindsets to leave them unemployed and hopeless over a holiday as the studios execs and agents all head to exciting locales to read and relax. The frustration of walking picket lines while the gates at the studios slow dramatically won't be so fun either.

But mostly, this holdiay represetns 2% of the year. And it's 2% when there are usually significant expenditures on parties, gifts, bonuses, etc.

I did believe that the strike could end around December 1. But like the strike starting itself, getting to this weekend without a deal pretty much assures another few weeks of delay before a real deal is seriously considered. And all the micro-activities in the meanwhile are just a smokescreen.

I would suggest that the nrxt step for the WGA would be to start behaving more like their counterparts and to set 2 or 3 hard positions that the AMPTP has to agree to before the WGA returns to the bargaining table... absolutes, like the AMPTP did on the doubled DVD residual.

A $250 a year fixed residual on free streaming is simply unacceptable. That's a quarter cent per download against 100,000 downloads and 1/250th of a cent per download if a years downloads of a show hits 1 million. Forget counting the AMPTP's revenues... that's just insane.

But the WGA side needs to continue to offer real options and not just rhetoric. For instance, what if there were two scales for free streaming, based on how many re-runs on network and/or cable an episode accrued? So if a show was replayed twice, say once on network and once on cable, allowing a writer to get significant residual revenue from those two showings, the streaming rate could be, say, $1500 for every 500,000 streams, another $1500 due as soon as streams hit 1 or 500,001 and on?

If a network decided not to rerun an episode, the residual rate would become significantly greater for streaming... say $1500 for every 100,000 streams.

Programming specifically created for the web by WGA members without any other residual opportunities would have to be more, say, $5000 for every 100,000 streams.

My point is... the goal is not "we own the web" or "won't lose the web." It's got to be, we see an evolution, we want the industry to have as much flexibility to adjust to new formats as possible, but we need to get paid if our old pay system is decimated by new technology. It's not winning or losing the web... it's the concern about losing the key paydays of network reruns to online streamng reruns that don't promise to come close to paying as well.

There is the very real possibility that free streaming will be a short-term experiment. The future will be loaded with all kinds of branches off current and traditional ideas. The DVR will eventually change the entire thing, but even short-term, how long before NBC/Universal starts NBC/S, a pay network ($5 a month) for sponsored reruns, like the web, but with the additional revenue stream from cable/satellite, a wider reach, and an entire week's network schedule available every day, since it basically comes down to 22 primetime hours and assorted other filmed goodies cut in time by a quarter when commericals are removed? No one actually wants to watch a show on a computer screen as opposed to being anywhere in their home watching on a regular TV... the added value online being scheduling. But that will evolve too.

All this stuff about partners and no one pays a plumber a royalty when the toilet flushes, etc... all way off point. It's simple. If an episode of a TV show can generate $7 million in its lifetime, who much should a writer of the episode - not the showrunner - get paid? Is it $100,000? $150,000? $200,000? More? Less? That is where the answer to this strike is.

Ever notice how divorce proceedings ofter devolve into one party acting so they won't get "screwed" by the other party? That's the tone of the strike right now. Whether you want to believe it or not, it is the tone on both sides. Everyone has skin in this game. Sentimentalism is how you keep from settling, not how you settle. Don't take a knife to a gunfight.

Posted by poland at December 8, 2007 11:42 PM

Comments

Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at December 9, 2007 03:44 AM

Posted by: mutinyco at December 9, 2007 09:37 AM

Posted by: sloanish at December 9, 2007 12:59 PM

Posted by: Sunday Silence at December 9, 2007 05:10 PM

Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at December 11, 2007 03:15 AM

Post a comment