Writers’ Strike : It’s here to last…
By fred | December 9, 2007
Not so long ago some people started to hope or dream that maybe, after both sides agreed to go back to the negotiation table, something could be worked out. It was a time were things weren’t that bad yet, no too many shows had left the air and people tried to stay optimistic. The idea was that hopefully a deal could be found before Christmas, and starting January 2008 everyone would go back to work for a new year filled with all our beloved series. Positive thinking, I guess.
Sadly, we’re not there. We’re not there today, we won’t be there tomorrow, and by the look of things it’s more likely every day that we won’t be there next month either. Of course, as any good TVoholic, or I believe anyone who knows what’s going on there, I’m siding with the writers. So it shouldn’t be a surprise when I say this is all the fault of those assholes of studios and network executives, those greedy liars of producers, the AMPTP.
No but really, it is. Apparently they don’t really want the strike to be over soon, some might even wonder if they don’t secretly want it to last for a few months, thinking that this would allow them not to invest any money in all the new projects they should invest in by that time of the year. They actually think that, sure, obviously less people will be watching TV, and they’ll make less money out of a new series free, or should I say good series free, schedule; but they’re also convinced that millions of people would still tune in for those stupid games and awful reality TV crap.
Given how less expensive it is to produce those programs, they will still be making money, so they’re just fine with it. They might even actually want it to happen. I freaking hate them, because - unlike those morons - I do love TV, and I mean I do love good television. Of course, unlike them, I also do watch TV, too…
While I fear they might be right, I’m also confident - maybe wrongly - that no one will actually be pleased by only games & reality TV 24/7 for days and days and days. But it could last for weeks, months even, and that might be just what they’re after. Which sucks, because it would inevitably trash out this season. (Also, that’s why they’re trying to add cable shows to their schedule, or anything else they can find for that matter.)
Writers are still picketing, WGA is still negotiation, or willing to do so should the AMPTP came back at the table, now our only hope is that we, you and I, viewers do our part, that advertisers would give us a hand, so that they’d feel pressured enough not le let the next months turn into a really really bad time to any TVoholic, TV addict, lover or just (regular) viewer. Though I have to say it doesn’t look good…
And to know more about why the negotiations failed and where things are right now, here’s a great recap of the whole situation and events that took place these days by Nikki Finke from Deadline Hollywood Daily :
Let me recap what happened tonight, first and foremost. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers today at 2:35 PM put a so-called revised proposal, including a list of demands, on the bargaining table to flesh out its New Economic Partnership for the Writers Guild Of America.
The WGA described to me that the AMPTP’s latest New Media terms were the same old/same old. But I’m told agent Bryan Lourd, considered an objective source, believed that the new AMPTP proposal bettered the studios’ and networks’ terms on the table for New Media. It included an improved, albeit slightly, streaming deal for theatricals.
A controversy erupted over the AMPTP’s arrogantly issuing demands for the negotiations to continue. They ordered the writers to immediately take Reality TV and animation jurisdiction off the table, remove the no-strike clause in their contract (meaning that, once their own strike was settled, the writers must cross picket lines if the Screen Actors Guild goes on strike), stop insisting on a fair market value test (aimed at keeping the studios and networks from selling entertainment product back to themselves at a lower price than they could get from an outside company), and no longer demand a distributor’s gross definition on New media (which the WGA argues could gut all its New Media proposals). See the AMPTP’s ultimatum here for yourselves.
I’m told that, after the AMPTP ultimatum was made, the WGA negotiators went to caucus inside a hotel room. Faced with what to do about the AMPTP’s take-it-or-leave-it demand, “we were still going to make a counter-proposal in the hopes of keeping the negotiations going,” recounted WGA negotiating committee member David A. Goodman, who was there, in an email. “However, we were all pretty clear that they were setting us up.”
After about an hour and a half, the AMPTP claims it sent Bryan Lourd to the hotel room to ask what was happening, and he was told by the WGA they were preparing a counter-proposal. The AMPTP says it asked Lourd to find out if that counter-proposal contained anything from the list of demands which the networks and studios wanted the WGA to take off the table, and that the WGA negotiators wouldn’t say.
But the WGA’s Goodman disputes the AMPTP’s account of what happened. “As we were discussing what to do, [AMPTP president] Nick Counter came looking for David Young. He asked him, in the hallway, “Are you going to take those things off the table?” David said we were working on our counter-proposal, but wanted to present everything at once, [and] he wasn’t going to negotiate in the wallway, and said we would be making a counter proposal very soon, that night.”
Hey, I really like your site and you’ve always got good things to say. Don’t forget, though, that these days TV doesn’t begin and end with the networks. The execs might think that the strike is a good way to make a couple months of cheaper TV with the same number of viewers, but don’t you think that people will just go elsewhere, like the Internet, for their entertainment? When the strike is over, they may never come back.
Hey,
Thanks =) And yes, you’re absolutely right, should the strike last for a while, and sadly it sure looks like it’s heading that way, many people will probably leave their TV behind and find new ways to spend their free time.
They might turn to DVDs, but also Internet and such, because as we all know those “new medias” are the future, hence the writers’ demands. And there is a chance many of them never return to TV once this is all over. In fact, even if they were to return to their favorite scripted series (because one cannot just walk away from Lost, right?), they might do so not through the usual way, but get their content online from that point on…
Just like the previous WGA strike did (although I sure hope it won’t last that long!), and especially given how many viewers are already angry at networks for canceling new series after a couple of episodes only, this strike could affect networks’ audience a lot.
This threat sure exists, and is also why advertisers are getting worried. Not that I have anything against new medias, but I still hope things don’t go that far… Let’s pray for a Christmas miracle!
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