Writers strike is a go

[Grog]

Personally I find it kind of funny since it sure seems writers are very quick to use Unions as transparent masks for organized crime...

Organized crime? What are you talking about?

 

[Pyrex]

Like I said, the studios' gross on a $20 DVD is about $9. What do you figure their profit is? $5-6 per disc? And the writers get four cents? Does that seem right to you?

I don't know. Can you point me to any data as to how accurate your $6 guess is? How much of that $6 goes to the actors/producers/writers and how much to the studio's bottom line?

I don't know if $0.04 is fair, because I don't know where the rest of the money goes.

Similarly, I can't even begin to comment on how much writers (or anyone else for that matter) should get paid when an ep is streamed (or sold) over the internet because I have no idea how much money changes hands or where it goes.

 

[Grog]

I don't know. Can you point me to any data as to how accurate your $6 guess is? How much of that $6 goes to the actors/producers/writers and how much to the studio's bottom line?

I don't know if $0.04 is fair, because I don't know where the rest of the money goes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/movies/13leip.html

Turns out I was wrong about the figures. Studios sell DVDs wholesale for $16; subtract $2 for manufacturing costs and $2 for marketing costs, and they're making $12 profit per DVD. Of which they give the writers four cents. There's something very wrong with this picture.

 

[WayneLigon]

Studios need to launch a "The SWG wants to stop free web content!" statement.

Which would be as much a bald-faced lie as many other statements studios have made. The content is paid for by the advertisers and currently the writers, actors and many others are not being paid for their work being shown in another media because studios are still trying to pretend the net is not a medium while at the same time gearing up to offer large amounts of content that they then promote heavily.

 

[Mistwell]

Here are some more facts from the Producer's perspective (since, again, I think that perspective is pretty under represented in this thread):

In 2006, the average MPAA film cost over $100 million to produce, market and distribute in the domestic market, and approximately another $40 million if released overseas.

Revenues obtained in the initial market of release no longer cover the costs of production, much less distribution and marketing. There is no such thing as supplemental or ancillary or secondary market any longer and hasn’t been for years. All windows and media are needed for the vast majority of productions just to recoup initial costs, much less break even or make a profit.

In television, some 85 - 90% of series fail before they can be syndicated. The average deficit (production costs less license fee) for the first season of a one-hour series is $26.4 - $33 million and is $8.8 - $15.4 million for a half-hour series.

For the 2006/07 television season, 6 of the TOP 10 series were non-scripted programming. For the 2007/08 television season, scripted series hit an all-time low of 67% down from 81% just two seasons ago (that represents 64 of 96 series on five networks).

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.). So can we PLEASE stop tossing around this 4 cent number. It's not an accurate number. And yes, it's a STANDARD sale unit of 1 million DVDs, not an exception. Remember, sales includes to rental companies.

According to WGAw, 4,434 of its working film and television members earned a combined $905.8 million in 2006, not counting pensions or health care or any other benefits. The average member earned $204,295 and over half earned at least $104,750. The WGA noted that these numbers are based on earnings reported for dues purposes and thus do not fully reflect above-scale payments. According to studies, workers in the media business earned on average just under $70,000 per year and the average person in Los Angeles earned just over $46,000. In 2006 more than $260,000,000 in record-breaking residuals was paid to WGAW members. Over the past 10 years, Producers paid in excess of $10 billion in residuals, including at least $1 billion to WGA members.

While it is easy to think of "producers" as "evil corporations", the producers in this case are members of the AMPTP, and often make LESS than writers. Indeed, a person with a writer/producer dual role is common, and those people make a lot more money on average than someone who is just a producer, and those writer-producers are for the most part on strike as well. A lot of producers in television are actually relatively low down on the totem pole.

As agreed to in past negotiations, the writer gets paid (plus gets pension and health contributions) for projects made specifically for New Media. The amount of the compensation is not a fixed amount, but negotiated by the writer (and/or his/her representative) with the producer. For replays on New Media, the writer gets paid a residual from New Media usage when the consumer pays to view a TV program or a feature film for a limited period of time and when a consumer downloads a permanent copy of a TV program or film (electronic sell-through). When the WGA went on strike, an offer to pay writers for Internet streaming was on the table.

The WGA has, as one of its demands, a royalty payout BEFORE the property becomes profitable. That means the writers want to be paid royalties (not initial pay for their work, but pay that is supposed to be based on success of a project), if a film or television show flops or worse, loses money. That means they feel they deserve money before anyone else, including everyone from the lowest gaffer to the actors, directors, catering, everyone.

The WGA strikers have blocking drive ways (something strikers are not allowed to do), streets (also not something they are allowed to do) and targeting specific famous actors (and calling the media in to cover it) to stop productions on shows that were already written. This, despite the fact that the writers worked furiously right up until midnight to submit those scripts, and got paid for those scripts, and now are using tactics to stop filming on those scripts that they got paid for. This has put hundreds of employees out of work who are not wealthy, who made a lot less than the writers, and who really have nothing do to with this strike and just want to do their jobs and get paid and maintain their mortgage and families. And those people reasonably believed they could plan to work at least on the remaining scripts in many of those series, and have no backup plan to cover their lost income (though many were working on a backup plan for later, when the scripts were supposed to run out).

The AMPTP attempted to start negotiations with the WGA 7 months ago, and told the WGA that some very difficult and complex issues regarding New Media needed to be discussed and those discussions should start early so as to avoid having to rush. The WGA refused to meet early, and only agreed to start negotiations on the day of the deadline to start negotiations (the old contract mandates a minimum 1 month negotiation time frame). In that month, they only met 19 times, and as expected couldn't come to an agreement. When the east coast midnight deadline hit, the AMPTP asked the WGA to hold off on the strike at least for a few hours while they were still negotiating (prior to the west coast deadline). The WGA refused, and initiated the strike during the negotiations - which obviously put a pretty serious taint on those negotiations.

 

[Mistwell]

Which would be as much a bald-faced lie as many other statements studios have made. The content is paid for by the advertisers and currently the writers, actors and many others are not being paid for their work being shown in another media because studios are still trying to pretend the net is not a medium while at the same time gearing up to offer large amounts of content that they then promote heavily.

Why does this false claim keep getting repeated? MOST web content is currently covered by the existing agreement for royalties (downloads and pay per view). It's ONLY free streaming content that isn't currently covered, and when the negotiations broke off there was an offer on the table to cover that as well. The discussion is over increasing the pay for that content, not that nothing is being paid for most of it. And, in fact it is true that most of it is not at all profitable and indeed is currently a loss. It probably will make money in the future, which is why they are gearing up to offer large amounts of content and promote it heavily, but right now it really is not.

 

[Mistwell]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/movies/13leip.html

Turns out I was wrong about the figures. Studios sell DVDs wholesale for $16; subtract $2 for manufacturing costs and $2 for marketing costs, and they're making $12 profit per DVD. Of which they give the writers four cents. There's something very wrong with this picture.

Dude, that is NOT NOT NOT profit for the project itself. How can you possibly not subtract the cost of making the friggen movie/show that is left over from the typical loss of first release? And it was even mentioned in the very article you linked to, in the paragraph right above the one you are quoting.

A typical studio movie costs nearly $100 million: an average of $63.6 million to make and $34.4 million to market. Theater exhibitors - Regal, AMC, Loews, and the like - generally keep 50 percent of their box-office sales, which means that a movie must sell nearly $200 million worth of tickets worldwide to return $100 million to the studio and thus break even in its theatrical release.

Since few movies earn that much at the box office, the studios have increasingly relied on the home-video market, where the equation is much more in their favor, to help recover losses and make a profit.

And the same article then goes on to explain that returns are also taken out of that $12 "profit", and that failures are becoming more common.

 

[Grog]

Here are some more facts from the Producer's perspective (since, again, I think that perspective is pretty under represented in this thread):

Since you're presenting all these things as facts, I'd like to see some sources before I accept them as such.

Why does this false claim keep getting repeated? MOST web content is currently covered by the existing agreement for royalties (downloads and pay per view). It's ONLY free streaming content that isn't currently covered, and when the negotiations broke off there was an offer on the table to cover that as well. The discussion is over increasing the pay for that content, not that nothing is being paid for most of it.

Yes, writers currently get the (abysmally low) DVD rate for internet downloads, and the offer on the table for streaming content was the same (abysmally low) DVD rate. And it's worth point out that the AMPTP's first "offer" in the negotiations was not only to pay the writers nothing for streaming content, but also to redefine existing residuals so they'd get nothing for downloaded content, either. That explains why there wasn't much negotiating earlier this year; when the studios are sticking to a position like that, there's not much to talk about, is there?

And, in fact it is true that most of it is not at all profitable and indeed is currently a loss. It probably will make money in the future, which is why they are gearing up to offer large amounts of content and promote it heavily, but right now it really is not.

Again, I'd like to see some sourcing for this "fact." And I'd like it to be something more concrete than simply a statement from a studio executive, considering that we're talking about an industry that's so infamous for corrupt accounting that they actually have the term "monkey points."

And also, it's worth pointing out that this is exactly how the writers got screwed the last time around. Back when movies were first being sold on VHS, the studios said exactly the same thing that they're saying now. "It's too new! We don't know how much money we can make here! We need you to take this crappy deal while we grow the market and find out if there's any money to be made in home video." And then when DVD came along, the studios said "It's home video, same as VHS," and that's how the writers ended up where they are today. I think it's understandable that they don't want the same thing to happen again.

Dude, that is NOT NOT NOT profit for the project itself. How can you possibly not subtract the cost of making the friggen movie/show that is left over from the typical loss of first release? And it was even mentioned in the very article you linked to, in the paragraph right above the one you are quoting.

$60 million is the average movie budget. That average is skewed by the handful of $100-200 million "blockbusters" the studios produce every year. The majority of movies are made for less than that $60 million figure. Ditto for the marketing figures - most movies don't get nearly $30 million in marketing.

So you can't take it as read that every movie loses money at the box office. For some films, that $12 per disc is pure gravy to the studios.

 

[Mistwell]

Since you're presenting all these things as facts, I'd like to see some sources before I accept them as such.

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.

Make up your mind. Are we done from your perspective, and you're going to ignore what I post, or did you want to discuss it still?

And yes, I was responding to you...because I never declared discussion done (just the long point by point where you dismiss everything and demand more sources to any response). You seemed to have ended our discussion from your end.

As for what you would like to see, you've already made it clear you have no intention at all of considering the other side, as you already made up your mind. If it's sourced from a Producer-biased source you have said it is all lies, and if it is sourced from a Writer-biased source you have presented it as all truth. So, why would I engage further in that? At this point, I care about those who want to know both sides and make up their minds.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I really don't understand all of the details of this, but...

A lot of the Anti-Writers side of the debate seems to be "if we pay you for this, then it won't be profitable/possible". But, that kind of argument is completley nonsensical. If you can only afford to do something if you don't pay the most important people in creative production (writers, directors, actors, etc), then you shouldn't be bothering to do so in the first place. Paying such people should never be considered to be an optional expense.

The entire argument that writers and others should abandon guarantees on their contract of getting paid for something, just becuase a new media is unreliable or unprofitable at the moment, is also completely flawed. As has been said before, contracts last longer than market conditions do, and previous contracts set precedent for new ones. As such, any argument based on current or temporary situations should not be applied to a long-term thing like a contract.

Also, Mistwell, you would probably serve the "producer's" case a lot better if you left out all the emotional pleas about the way strikers are blocking streets and somehoe snubbing their noses down at other people in the industry. Those have nothing to do with the debate at hand. If anything, it just makes it look like you have a personal axe to grind in this debate.