2008 Woodie Awards
OPINION: Writing striking again - as my TiVo gently weeps.
Nathan Harrison, Staff Writer
Issue date: 11/13/07
Last Updated: 11/16/07
Of course there would be a writers’ strike this year.
After years of acquiring my favorite shows guilt-free via BitTorrent and friend-of-a-friend DVD-R sharing, I decided now was the time to become an upstanding citizen. I signed up for cable TV with my Internet service provider, hooked up the TiVo a manufacturer’s rebate somehow paid me $120 to buy, and resigned myself to paying for the shows I watch, like a good little consumer.
But it appears my debt to society will not be paid off so easily: Starting last Monday, Nov. 5, both the east and west branches of the Writers Guild of America went on strike, dooming TV viewers to a season of repeats and reality TV that likely will not be over for months.
To put it simply, this is a strike that is long overdue. When the WGA was last on strike in 1988, VHS was barely on the radar, let alone DVD. The Internet existed, but only in a rudimentary form, incapable of delivering the viral videos that capture the attention of millions today. As it stands, the guild’s current contract is hopelessly out of date.
In 1985 contract negotiations, media companies argued that the home entertainment arena was still a high-end, untested fringe market – VHS cassettes then retailed between $40 and $100. They convinced the WGA to accept a formula that today nets writers an average of four cents for every DVD sold.
Today, many networks have begun offering entire streamed episodes of TV shows for free online in parallel to their normal airing, often with advertising embedded just as on television. Some have also begun to market direct, permanent downloads through services like the iTunes Store, Xbox Live Marketplace and Amazon Unbox. Currently, writers receive no compensation of any kind for such downloads, as they would with any other form of purchase.
The WGA is striking until the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the employer of the guild’s members, crafts a new contract that grants writers a bigger portion of the revenues generated by this kind of product. So far, the AMPTP has refused, insisting that for now, guild members should accept the current system for what it does cover, and “wait-and-see” for everything else.
What this all means varies from show to show. The threat of a strike has been in the air for weeks, giving some shows enough lead time to stockpile a small reserve of scripts, but daytime soaps and late-night comedy shows both operate on scripts often still being written and polished until the final moment before filming. The striking writers also include film screenwriters, though any effect on the movie business will probably be negligible, given the longer development times in that industry.
Some shows have already gone dark: “The Late Show with David Letterman”, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”, “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”; all went off the air starting last Friday. Nearest and dearest to my heart, this means that “The Daily Show”, “The Colbert Report” and “Saturday Night Live” are gone for the foreseeable future as well.
Sad as it is, the strike may even look like a blessing in disguise to some networks, as few new scripted shows have impressed this season and many returning favorites have shown flagging ratings.
What to viewers like me seems like an inescapable flood of reality TV to come, to some networks must be a godsend: reality TV is cheap and popular, despite all logic. Week after week, the inane “Dancing With the Stars” tops out the list of the most-watched shows in America. I shudder to think of Michael Scott, Dwight Schrute and the rest being replaced by even more instances of C-list celebrities desperately flailing to catch the public’s eye, but no one said this would be pretty.
Despite all these life-threatening wounds to critical groups in my personal Food Pyramid of Pop Culture Consumption, I still find myself siding with the striking writers. I support them, even if it means a dearth of new episodes of “Heroes” and “Lost” down the line, and even though networks and movie studios are quick to point to figures claiming the average working Hollywood writer earns about $200,000 a year.
It’s a factor that gets more attention than it deserves. First, statistics released by the group that stands to benefit if public opinion turns against writers are not to be wholly trusted. In the cut-throat entertainment business, anything is possible.
Second, there’s the key word: “working.” The WGA’s west branch reports up to 48 percent of its members are unemployed at any time; the current strike revolves primarily around “residuals.” Residuals are payments writers get for the continued success of their work, be it in reruns or DVD; these are payments that will affect the lowest rung of writers most, the ones far below the $200,000 average.
Third, average incomes are immaterial in this debate. Regardless of a writer’s salary, there is no essential difference between a TV show or movie sold on DVD and one sold through the iTunes Store, except absence of a physical product. That absence, by no means, should rob writers of their right to the fruits of their labor. It’s a basic issue of fairness.
The umbrella corporations that encapsulate all the various broadcast and cable networks have already demonstrated their tendency to look out for themselves on the VHS and DVD fronts. Clearly, the Writers Guild of America is trying to send a message that it won’t be burned again with the same story about new media as an “unproven market.”
As someone who has been an avid consumer of such “new media,” I agree with the Writers Guild that they should not wait any longer before being granted their share. And unless the AMPTP wants to join the ranks of backwards media companies like the RIAA, they should agree, too.
After years of acquiring my favorite shows guilt-free via BitTorrent and friend-of-a-friend DVD-R sharing, I decided now was the time to become an upstanding citizen. I signed up for cable TV with my Internet service provider, hooked up the TiVo a manufacturer’s rebate somehow paid me $120 to buy, and resigned myself to paying for the shows I watch, like a good little consumer.
But it appears my debt to society will not be paid off so easily: Starting last Monday, Nov. 5, both the east and west branches of the Writers Guild of America went on strike, dooming TV viewers to a season of repeats and reality TV that likely will not be over for months.
To put it simply, this is a strike that is long overdue. When the WGA was last on strike in 1988, VHS was barely on the radar, let alone DVD. The Internet existed, but only in a rudimentary form, incapable of delivering the viral videos that capture the attention of millions today. As it stands, the guild’s current contract is hopelessly out of date.
In 1985 contract negotiations, media companies argued that the home entertainment arena was still a high-end, untested fringe market – VHS cassettes then retailed between $40 and $100. They convinced the WGA to accept a formula that today nets writers an average of four cents for every DVD sold.
Today, many networks have begun offering entire streamed episodes of TV shows for free online in parallel to their normal airing, often with advertising embedded just as on television. Some have also begun to market direct, permanent downloads through services like the iTunes Store, Xbox Live Marketplace and Amazon Unbox. Currently, writers receive no compensation of any kind for such downloads, as they would with any other form of purchase.
The WGA is striking until the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the employer of the guild’s members, crafts a new contract that grants writers a bigger portion of the revenues generated by this kind of product. So far, the AMPTP has refused, insisting that for now, guild members should accept the current system for what it does cover, and “wait-and-see” for everything else.
What this all means varies from show to show. The threat of a strike has been in the air for weeks, giving some shows enough lead time to stockpile a small reserve of scripts, but daytime soaps and late-night comedy shows both operate on scripts often still being written and polished until the final moment before filming. The striking writers also include film screenwriters, though any effect on the movie business will probably be negligible, given the longer development times in that industry.
Some shows have already gone dark: “The Late Show with David Letterman”, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”, “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”; all went off the air starting last Friday. Nearest and dearest to my heart, this means that “The Daily Show”, “The Colbert Report” and “Saturday Night Live” are gone for the foreseeable future as well.
Sad as it is, the strike may even look like a blessing in disguise to some networks, as few new scripted shows have impressed this season and many returning favorites have shown flagging ratings.
What to viewers like me seems like an inescapable flood of reality TV to come, to some networks must be a godsend: reality TV is cheap and popular, despite all logic. Week after week, the inane “Dancing With the Stars” tops out the list of the most-watched shows in America. I shudder to think of Michael Scott, Dwight Schrute and the rest being replaced by even more instances of C-list celebrities desperately flailing to catch the public’s eye, but no one said this would be pretty.
Despite all these life-threatening wounds to critical groups in my personal Food Pyramid of Pop Culture Consumption, I still find myself siding with the striking writers. I support them, even if it means a dearth of new episodes of “Heroes” and “Lost” down the line, and even though networks and movie studios are quick to point to figures claiming the average working Hollywood writer earns about $200,000 a year.
It’s a factor that gets more attention than it deserves. First, statistics released by the group that stands to benefit if public opinion turns against writers are not to be wholly trusted. In the cut-throat entertainment business, anything is possible.
Second, there’s the key word: “working.” The WGA’s west branch reports up to 48 percent of its members are unemployed at any time; the current strike revolves primarily around “residuals.” Residuals are payments writers get for the continued success of their work, be it in reruns or DVD; these are payments that will affect the lowest rung of writers most, the ones far below the $200,000 average.
Third, average incomes are immaterial in this debate. Regardless of a writer’s salary, there is no essential difference between a TV show or movie sold on DVD and one sold through the iTunes Store, except absence of a physical product. That absence, by no means, should rob writers of their right to the fruits of their labor. It’s a basic issue of fairness.
The umbrella corporations that encapsulate all the various broadcast and cable networks have already demonstrated their tendency to look out for themselves on the VHS and DVD fronts. Clearly, the Writers Guild of America is trying to send a message that it won’t be burned again with the same story about new media as an “unproven market.”
As someone who has been an avid consumer of such “new media,” I agree with the Writers Guild that they should not wait any longer before being granted their share. And unless the AMPTP wants to join the ranks of backwards media companies like the RIAA, they should agree, too.
Nathan Harrison is an opinions columnist and a senior majoring in journalism. Contact him at nathan.harrison@whitworthian.com.
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