Writers strike is a go

[Mistwell]

Bill Handel, a talk radio guy out here, says he will be interviewing someone from the Producers perspective on Monday. I will try and listen to the show and post what I hear. Handle is pro-writer on this issue, but he will probably be relatively fair to them and let them get their side out at least.

 

[Grog]

First, that whole four cents thing is a bit inaccurate. On a standard 1 million unit sale of a DVD, a writer garners at least an additional $64,800 beyond initial compensation (on 5 million units at least $324,000; on 10 million units $648,000, etc.).

First, how many DVDs sell that many units?

Second, what's the studio's take on that same million unit sell-through? The figures I've read put the studio's gross on a $20 DVD at $9. Even using the most generous estimates for promotion costs, payouts, etc., they're still clearing a few million dollars profit on that DVD that the writer is supposedly getting $64k for.

If people copy the online content and distribute it themselves to their friends, causing those people to not watch the actual show at all whereas they would have previously watched it, then it's costing them money.

How many people go through the trouble of copying an episode off a network's website and stripping out the commercials (not an easy thing to do)? Now compare that to the number of people who tape an episode off TV and give it to their friends, or simply download the episode through BitTorrent or some filesharing program? This argument carries no weight.

In addition, putting it up online costs money, and not just in bandwidth.

What's the additional cost? The salaries of a few technical guys? Please.

There is an army of guys right now dealing with online issues at the studios, they make decent money, and right now those departments are not considered profit centers but "potential future profit centers". In other words, they are a write-off right now.

This claim doesn't mean much, considering that it's coming from a group of people who are masters at "massaging" numbers to hide profit. Remember, we're talking about the same studios who claimed they lost money on Forrest Gump, despite the fact that the film grossed almost $700 million worldwide on a production budget of $55 million.

Here are some additional facts from the AMPTP site:

Those are facts, but they're highly misleading. The offer on the table was to pay the writers the DVD royalty for online viewing, rather than the broadcast royalty. This will amount to a huge paycut for the writers over the next few years as more and more stuff moves online.

If you're trying to get me to feel sympathy for the studios, it's not going to work. They make money hand over fist and then do their damnedest to avoid sharing it with the people whose work made them that money in the first place. They always have.

 

[Mistwell]

First, how many DVDs sell that many units?

Second, what's the studio's take on that same million unit sell-through? The figures I've read put the studio's gross on a $20 DVD at $9. Even using the most generous estimates for promotion costs, payouts, etc., they're still clearing a few million dollars profit on that DVD that the writer is supposedly getting $64k for.


How many people go through the trouble of copying an episode off a network's website and stripping out the commercials (not an easy thing to do)? Now compare that to the number of people who tape an episode off TV and give it to their friends, or simply download the episode through BitTorrent or some filesharing program? This argument carries no weight.


What's the additional cost? The salaries of a few technical guys? Please.


This claim doesn't mean much, considering that it's coming from a group of people who are masters at "massaging" numbers to hide profit. Remember, we're talking about the same studios who claimed they lost money on Forrest Gump, despite the fact that the film grossed almost $700 million worldwide on a production budget of $55 million.


Those are facts, but they're highly misleading. The offer on the table was to pay the writers the DVD royalty for online viewing, rather than the broadcast royalty. This will amount to a huge paycut for the writers over the next few years as more and more stuff moves online.

If you're trying to get me to feel sympathy for the studios, it's not going to work. They make money hand over fist and then do their damnedest to avoid sharing it with the people whose work made them that money in the first place. They always have.

Ah see I was going into this thinking you wanted to hear the positions of both sides, and like all complex issues in life see if you could find the truth that lay somewhere between both positions.

I could point by point rebut your response, but to what end? As you said, there is nothing anyone could say that would get you to change your view. You feel it's the writers whose work makes all the money...as if that's the only crucial component to making a TV show or movie. I don't think that. I think it's one of hundreds of elements, and if you take away any of those elements you don't have that show or movie.

This debate doesn't belong here. Perhaps we can take it to CircvsMaximvs if you are looking to debate the topic. For me, I just wanted to see the other side, and I have. I still actually tend slightly towards the writers side of the debate, but I am not so blinded by one side that I have become incapable of understanding the other side.

 

[Grog]

I could point by point rebut your response, but to what end? As you said, there is nothing anyone could say that would get you to change your view. You feel it's the writers whose work makes all the money...as if that's the only crucial component to making a TV show or movie. I don't think that. I think it's one of hundreds of elements, and if you take away any of those elements you don't have that show or movie.

And now I see that you aren't actually interested in debating my points, but rather setting up straw men and debating them instead. I never said that the writer's work makes all the money - which is why I don't think the writer should get 100% of the profits from a show or a movie.

If you want to talk about what I actually say, instead of what you want to pretend I said, we can have a discussion. Until then, we're done.

And, for anyone else looking for information on the strike, these two posts (one and two) go into the issues in-depth. They're long, but worth the read.

 

[DM_Matt]

I am deeply amused that Mistwell's pro-producers article comes from DKos and he plans to cite a pro-writers view from Bill Handel. Bravo for ironically against-type sourcing.

 

[WayneLigon]

Entertainment Weekly has an interesting article on the strike.

Particularly salient is:

Complaints about tactics, timing, and the problematic personalities at the negotiating table shouldn't obscure the fact that the position of the AMPTP (the producers' negotiating alliance) has been, and remains, ethically indefensible on the two issues that matter most — residuals and new media. Let's look at residuals first. Currently, for every dollar spent on a DVD, writers receive about one-third of a penny. They would like, instead, to receive about two-thirds of a penny. The AMPTP's first response to this was to waste weeks by advocating a complete abolition of the residual system. Why, they argued, should writers get paid anything for their work after it's released? Studio chiefs who are smart enough to know better even hauled out a tired old maxim attributed to the late MCA titan Lew Wasserman — ''My plumber doesn't charge me every time I flush the toilet'' — and repeated it in perfect ... lockstep.

Leno and Conan O'Brien have declined to cross picket lines now, sending studios scrambling for anyone stupid or desperate enough to host The Tonight Show etc. Joan Rivers is probably waiting by the phone right now.

Interesting 'What If?' about a Comics Writer's Union at Newsarama, with various people in various orbits of the industry giving their opinion on such a thing.

 

[DM_Matt]

Entertainment Weekly has an interesting article on the strike.

Particularly salient is:

Complaints about tactics, timing, and the problematic personalities at the negotiating table shouldn't obscure the fact that the position of the AMPTP (the producers' negotiating alliance) has been, and remains, ethically indefensible on the two issues that matter most — residuals and new media. Let's look at residuals first. Currently, for every dollar spent on a DVD, writers receive about one-third of a penny. They would like, instead, to receive about two-thirds of a penny. The AMPTP's first response to this was to waste weeks by advocating a complete abolition of the residual system. Why, they argued, should writers get paid anything for their work after it's released? Studio chiefs who are smart enough to know better even hauled out a tired old maxim attributed to the late MCA titan Lew Wasserman — ''My plumber doesn't charge me every time I flush the toilet'' — and repeated it in perfect ... lockstep.

Is it certain that they sincerely were going for that, or were they just moving their position away from the status quo towards their ideal result in order to get more negotiating leeway?

Proposing zero residuals puts their starting position equally distant from the status quo as the writers, putting them in a much, much better negotiating position (a neutral negotiating space) than creating a situation where they defend the status quo and the writers wants more (a highly writer-sqewed negotiating space).

It seems that this is a sound negotiating tactic, so long as they don't get too much backlash over it.

 

[trancejeremy]

Interesting 'What If?' about a Comics Writer's Union at Newsarama, with various people in various orbits of the industry giving their opinion on such a thing.

The thing with writing in general, is there is usually a whole lot more people who want to do it, than are actually working at it.

I'm not saying writing isn't a skill, but it's something that pretty much every literate person can do, as opposed to something like say, designing a bridge or airplane, or performing surgery.

Sure, there are quality issues, but that's always been the case (Sturgeons' Law). So I don't see how it can get much worse (especially in Hollywood's case).

I think the writers in Hollywood were able to unionize mostly because for the most part, it didn't really matter, Hollywood was making so much money, they didn't care (or because the Writer's union was so inept, they actually thought it was a plus).

I think the writers know this, which is why all the blacklisting stuff has been rattled about, like threatening poor Ellen de Generis (who is still upset over dog). They're afraid they can be replaced and no one will know the difference. (or much of one)

But stuff like that wouldn't work in the comics industry, since there are ever fewer writing positions available. And also in comics, there's a potential to hit it big that doesn't exist in Hollywood - a really good comic writer/artist can become well known among fans, then start his own indie press, and sell a limited run or graphic novel. And maybe get it picked up by Hollywood for big bucks (Spawn, Sin City, 300, The Crow, etc).

Anyway, in stuff like this, the people who really get hurt are the consumers (since any increase in money the writer's guy won't come out of the studios pocket, but result in increased DVD prices) and the people who work on shows but aren't "talent".

 

[Grog]

Anyway, in stuff like this, the people who really get hurt are the consumers (since any increase in money the writer's guy won't come out of the studios pocket, but result in increased DVD prices)

Actually, this isn't true. DVDs have been a mass-market item for a long time now, so you can bet that the studios have figured out the maximum prices that the market will bear, and are charging them right now. It's basic economics - once an item has been on sale for a while (and oftentimes it doesn't even take very long), the seller will figure out the highest price they can charge before further increases start to result in prohibitive losses in sales.

By way of example, say you charge $20 for a DVD. If you double the price to $40, and your sales drop by less than 50%, you made money. So you have a strong incentive to find the price point where the number of sales multiplied by the amount you're charging gives you the maximum profit. And the studios have certainly figured that out by now. They're at the point where raising DVD prices will end up reducing their profits.

Think about it - if the studios could simply pass the cost of what the writers are asking for on to the consumer and continue making exactly the same profit that they are now, would they be fighting this hard against the WGA? Of course not. The reason they're fighting this hard is because anything more they give to the writers is going to come straight out of their profits.

And anyway, given how little the writers are asking for, price increases aren't an issue anyway. It's not like the studios could really raise prices by four cents per DVD, after all.

 

[Mark Chance]

So, then, worst-case scenario is people end up watching less TV. The horror.