Courtesy of John Rogers, a concise, easy-to-follow, and surprisingly entertaining explanation of why all your favorite shows are drifting into re-runs:
And in case you’re wondering, yes, I support the WGA wholeheartedly in this matter. Writers don’t typically get a lot of recognition or respect in the film and television industry, but they are, to my mind, the most important part of the process. If somebody doesn’t write the story to begin with, the guy in the jodhpurs and riding boots has nothing to direct, and the “talent” have nothing to say. It’s that simple. And in a business as flush as Hollywood, to say there isn’t enough money to go around is disingenuous at best. The vast majority of WGA members really don’t make much money for their efforts, and if they’re trying to survive purely on screenwriting, their income is likely to be pretty sporadic. In my book, they deserve their modest cut of the residuals pie a lot more than the suits deserve another Gulfstream…
Very well done, and they’re right. Several of my close friends are writers on very successful shows. You’d think they were raking in the dough. They’re not. What’s more, they’re working in an industry where it is normal–completely normal–to suddenly go from working on a hit show to being unemployed for months or even a couple of years. That’s why the residuals are there. Writers deserve to get paid when their products bring in money. I’m behind the writers 100%.
I’m behind the writers as well – this is a classic case of management taking advantage of labor, and the union standing up for its workers. It’s what unions were made for, and I’m glad it’s working (even if my favorite shows go into re-runs sooner than expected).
That said, I’ll note that as if often the case in these things, both sides are resorting to hyperbole to make the other side look ridiculous. Neither side is being ridiculous here – it’s simply a negotiation. And if it weren’t for the unions, it would be a negotiation in which management has the strong upper hand.
Pushing content over the Internet is not cost-free, even though you don’t have to make DVDs and pay trucking companies to ship them places. Hardware and software cost money. So does bandwidth. And it’s not just one time costs – it’s a maintenance function. If ABC.COM or iTunes goes down, even for a day, it’s front page news, severely damages their reputation and probably loses them thousands of customers. That drives ad revenue down, and the whole thing spirals. So paying the writers isn’t about giving them a piece of all this “free money” they’re making. It’s just another cost they need to factor into their business model (and one they’re trying to avoid).
On the other side, claiming that internet content is only promotional is enough spin to cause serious whiplash. Firstly, in some instances (e.g., iTunes), they charge for it, so claiming it’s promotional is nonsense. In the cases where it’s free, then sure – it’s promotional, but they make a ton of money on ad revenue while they’re promoting their shows, so the writers deserve a piece of that pie. If you call these things promotions (i.e., commercials), then what you have here is a medium that allows for commercials (banner ads) to run during commercials (the promotional show). They’re defining new models with old terms because it suits their (finanical) purposes, and they’ve been caught.
I just wish there were a way to have this discussion without painting both sides as evil, greedy bastards. Maybe we’d all walk away learning something…