Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007: strike day 23

Movies: Striking writers take their fight against studios to the Web (Salt Lake Tribune)

Hard to believe that Hollywood's studios and networks - the esteemed minds who thought the world would flock to see "Nancy Drew" and watch "Viva Laughlin" - could be wrong about anything.

But the "suits," the big-media corporations that make up the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), seem to have underestimated the support for the writers who went on strike three weeks ago.

Here's how it was supposed to go down: The Writers Guild of America would threaten a little, go on strike for a day or two, then get cold feet and come crawling back to the bargaining table and accept AMPTP's terms.

The public won't sympathize with a bunch of overpaid pen-scratchers who make an average of $200,000 a year, the media honchos thought - not when their daily dose of Leno and Letterman was at stake. The bosses also thought the Hollywood crews, the working stiffs who build the sets and run the copiers, won't support a strike that will put them out of work. Meanwhile, the studios had a stockpile of scripts written in preparation for a strike, so the studios thought they could wait out those greedy writers.

But guess what? The WGA members stayed firm, while the crew members and public opinion sided with the writers. And those scripts? Turned out some of them (such as "Angels & Demons," the now-delayed prequel to "The Da Vinci Code") needed rewrites - and there wasn't anyone willing to do that.

Laugh Lines in the Hollywood Strike

“The studios think we are having a horrible time out here,” said Richard Potter, a screenwriter who made “Strike Dancing,” a YouTube video showing pickets bebopping in formation to “Play That Funky Music.”

“What’s actually happening is we’re having a great time.”

The video is one of dozens on YouTube — most of them humorous, or trying to be — that are helping the union win the public relations war. A nationwide poll released on Nov. 14 by Pepperdine University found that 63 percent of Americans sided with the writers.

Broadway Talks Break Up Without A Deal (NY Times)

But in a sign that this might have been more of a break than a breakdown, the League of American Theaters and Producers announced that it was canceling performances only through Wednesday’s matinees. Two weekends ago, when the talks fell apart, the league canceled all of Thanksgiving week.

Two marathon negotiating sessions over the last two nights were considered promising signs that an end was in sight to the 18-day stagehands strike, which has darkened most of Broadway during a very important time of year for the theater business.

Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2007: strike day 16

Employees at CBS News Vote to Authorize a Strike (New York Times)

Several hundred CBS News employees represented by the Writers Guild of America have voted to authorize a strike against the company, union officials said yesterday.

The vote enables the guild to call a strike at any time, although a walkout is not imminent. A strike could affect CBS television and radio newscasts, both nationally and in four local markets.

...Approximately 500 CBS News writers, producers, editors, artists and assistants are represented by the guild; 81 percent of the nearly 300 who voted last week supported a strike. The contract with CBS expired in April 2005, and the president of the guild said he hoped the vote will bring both sides back to the negotiation table for the first time since January.

“This is a wake-up call to CBS News management. We’re saying that we are really at the end of our rope,” said Michael Winship, president of the Writers Guild of America, East.

In a statement, CBS called the vote unfortunate and said the company’s contract offer remained on the table. The network said it had proposed a 3 percent salary increase for television and network radio employees and a 2 percent increase for their local radio counterparts in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington.

Two Americas, Two Hollywoods (Weekly Standard via Yahoo! News)

Why such tepid support for the most significant union action likely before November 2008? The answer is that the writers' strike puts Democrats in a tight spot. (So tight that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office will only say that she has no plans to say anything whatsoever about the strike.)

On the one hand, you would expect Democrats to rally to the side of any union, particularly a Hollywood union--particularly a Hollywood union with a legitimate gripe against giant corporate media conglomerates. On the other hand, the management in Hollywood has given Clinton, Obama, and to a lesser extent, Edwards, barrels of money.

Who wants to be a millionaire -- on strike? (Salon)

ABC and the show's producers will make a lot of money for a long time from the work I did alongside my fellow writers at "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." The same holds true across the industry. Whether they produce new shows or dig deep into their libraries, there is no show that networks, studios and production companies won't be able to monetize in the form of webisodes, online games, cellphone ringtones, downloads and other digital media. I've read "The Long Tail." One day that million-dollar question I wrote or the joke I put in Regis' mouth will be streamed online, preceded by a 30-second ad that will generate money for someone. Just not me.

The Forgotten Writers' Strike of '06 (LA Times)

The last week of September, we all received letters notifying us that our jobs had been eliminated, the entire story department abolished. The guild had vanished from our cause, and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents the video editors, swooped in to unionize the show, freezing the WGA out of "Top Model" for good.

There were 12 of us, not 12,000. And so the strike against "America's Next Top Model" has become a footnote in the long struggle for writers to assert power in an industry that seeks to keep us powerless.

I want the WGA to prevail in the current standoff, and I believe the writers deserve everything they are asking for. But if the negotiations starting next Monday yield nothing, I fear that the strike may drag on for months, and the writers may come to understand the importance of the Forgotten Strike a year and a half too late.

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2007: strike day 14

Striking writers will resume stalks with studios (Reuters)

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and studio reps will head back to the bargaining table on November 26 after back-channel dialogue facilitated by Creative Artists Agency partner Bryan Lourd helped put the parties onto a more productive track. The WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) put out brief, identical statements Friday night.

No other details were provided, and a press blackout was instituted. But it's clear that the emotion-charged issue of new-media compensation will remain front and center when the talks resume.

Despite the planned resumption of talks, the WGA intends to continue its picketing and other strike activities.

Lobbying Helps Spur Talks in Writers' Strike

Studios were also fretting about their image. Executives at studios like CBS, Fox and NBC Universal have said privately that their side was losing the public relations battle because they were not responding to union claims. Some were concerned that the union, using blogs and YouTube to publish its message, was succeeding in painting them as greedy.

On Wednesday, the union publicized a nationwide poll by Pepperdine University that showed that 63 percent of Americans supported the writers in the fight.

No one wins when it comes to strike (Variety)

When you're on the outside, you always hear rumors that the studios are cooking the numbers. When you're inside a studio, you help cook the numbers. The experience leaves you with twin emotions: You empathize with those executives who are fighting to sustain their margins. You also comprehend first-hand the flaws in the process, and empathize with those who are getting shafted.

Theater Strike Threatens NY Economy

...after six weeks, said Frank Braconi, the chief economist for the comptroller’s office, the Broadway strike will “affect the vacation planning decisions of long-distance domestic and international tourists.”

The latest round of talks between the producers’ league and the stagehands’ union broke down last night, leaving no end in sight for the strike that has darkened most of Broadway for 10 days. Soon after the breakdown, the League of American Theaters and Producers announced that it was canceling performances of the 27 shows affected by the strike through Sunday.

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2007: strike day 13

Writers, studios to resume talks (LA Times)

Hollywood's film and TV writers and its major studios have agreed to return to the bargaining table, offering the first glimmer of hope that a deal to end a costly two-week strike could be within reach.

The Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said late Friday that they would resume talks Nov. 26 on a new contract for 10,500 writers to replace the one that expired Oct. 31. The two sides announced the plan in identical statements, a rare show of unity.

Although it was unclear which side took the initiative to revive the talks, the decision was mutual, according to people close to the matter...

Clearing the way for talks to restart was a decision this week by Nick Counter, the studios' chief negotiator, to drop his demand that talks not occur as long as writers were on strike.

Hollywood writers strike claims first casualty (Reuters)

In the first big-screen casualty of the Hollywood writers strike, Columbia Pictures said on Friday it had postponed production on "Angels & Demons," a prequel to its box-office hit "The Da Vinci Code" starring Tom Hanks.

The Sony Corp.-owned film distributor also said the planned release date for the Ron Howard-directed religious thriller, originally set to open during the 2008 holiday season, has been pushed back to 2009.

"With the strike nearing its third week, Columbia Pictures has postponed production of 'Angels & Demons'," the studio said in a statement, adding that the script by Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldman needed further work.

What The Writers' Strike Won't Change (Forbes)

A week before the Hollywood writers' strike began, NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker warned of "a real watershed" and "an inflection point" for the entertainment industry.

There's certainly a lot at stake, including the long-term health of the Writers Guild itself (see: "Why The Writers Must Win").

And while Americans continue to watch a record amount of television, the broadcast TV networks' share of that audience continues to slide, so giving viewers another reason to change the channel is the last thing they want to do.

But here are three much-discussed things the writers' strike will not change...

Friday, Nov. 16, 2007: strike day 12

Quote of the day: "God, we love your money. We love it. LOVE IT! PRECIOUS! BRING ME THE PRECIOUS! KILLS THE WRITERSES! I— Oh, WOW. Sorry, America. It’s been a weird few weeks. Moving on...."

Italian writers threaten to strike

TV scribe Andrea Purgatori, who is the screenwriters’ rep within Italian artistic copyright association SIAE, is sounding a call to action, lamenting a lack of royalties pertaining to Italian film and TV drama product sold for web and mobile phone use.

Purgatori said SIAE has taken legal action against mobile phone operators Telecom Italia, Vodafone, Wind and Hutchinson 3G, warning them to stop use of movies and TV dramas as content for their clients unless they are prepared to pay out specific royalty fees to writers.

“We’ve been talking a lot about it, and we will strike if we don’t get adequate compensation,” Purgatori said in an interview on Friday with weekly L’Espresso.

Meanwhile, SIAE is busy negotiating residuals for writers with Rupert Murdoch-owned paybox Sky Italia, which in past months has sold off plenty of mobile phone and web rights for Italian product to several Italian telecoms.

SIAE has given Sky Italia a Dec. 31 deadline. Unless an agreement is reached by then, starting in January 2008 Italy's artistic copyright org said it will consider illegal all further use of film and drama sold by Sky Italia for new media use.

La Scala workers on strike

A strike by La Scala's 800 workers forced the opera house on Thursday to cancel a second performance of Verdi's "Requiem" led by principal visiting conductor Daniel Barenboim. "Requiem" was to have been performed Saturday in Parma to help commemorate the 50th anniversary of Arturo Toscanini's death.

Officials also canceled Saturday's performance of Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte" in Milan.

...La Scala's employees -- including the orchestra and choir -- say they have not had a pay raise in seven years. Managers say they cannot negotiate with employees unless there are national contract talks in the sector.

International day of writers guilds' solidarity with the WGA: Nov. 28

The International Affiliation of Writers Guilds has called for an international day of solidarity to show support for the Writers Guild of America strike.

The group, which represents 21,000 screenwriters in guilds worldwide, made the announcement Thursday, the closing day of its annual meeting in Montreal.

The solidarity day is set for Nov. 28 and writers will demonstrate in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, the U.K., Mexico and France.

"The future of our industry is shifting toward new media," said Katharine Way, chair of the Writers Guild of Great Britain. "Writers have always had to fight for a small share of the revenues generated from their work and this case is no different."

Added Audrey O'Reilly, chair of the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild: "Our solidarity means that no self-respecting screenwriter in any country will undermine the U.S. strike. The overwhelming majority of our members will never take work from striking American colleagues because the fight now taking place in the U.S. is a fight for screenwriters across the globe."

Thursday, Nov. 15, 2007: strike day 11

Quote of the day: "You want to steal DVD money from a little black girl?"

Writers Supporting Writers As Strike Continues (Galleycat)

"The Horror Writers Association, on behalf of its writer members, stands in support of the Writers Guild of America strike in seeking appropriate compensation for writers when their work is distributed digitally, either via DVD or Internet downloads," writes HWA president Deborah LeBlanc in a statement sent to me yesterday afternoon. "Although HWA is not a union, it is an organization of writers that advocates for authors' rights. Writers Guild of America and its demands fall solidly into this category. All writers will be affected by the outcome of this strike, and we stand in solidarity, resisting those who seek to distribute our work on the Internet, DVD, or any format without fair compensation."

Writers are winning over the public

It certainly helps the writers that the companies with which they are at war have CEOs that have to talk out of both sides of their mouths. On the one hand, they have to claim everything is financially rosy so shareholders are happy. That includes profit forecasts from downloads and other digital platforms. Problem is, when it comes to the strike, that’s the very area which they claim isn’t monetizable at all.

...The WGA and supporters have also stayed on point during the past four months on the key issue of new media, in which bigwigs finding themselves infected with the mixed messaging bug.

On one hand CEOs of major media congloms are selling Wall Streeters on the fact that their digital offerings are growing like gangbusters and driving the bottom line. On the other hand, those same execs are holding out their hands and saying, a viable business model just doesn’t exist and profits just aren’t rolling in yet to give striking scribes what they want.

The problem is the congloms are stuck in the precarious position of angering shareholders: tell them that your company isn’t growing and the stock plummets. Let the strike continue for six months or more and you anger those same shareholders, because in reality, companies will be losing revenue, as a result.

WGA, please take note: Geoffrey Chaucer plans to be scabbing (from Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog)

Ich do thynk that the writers of Holy-Wood are goode folk and trewe and sholde continue their protest, but Philippa hath toold me that thys coud be an greet opportunitee for myn owene writinge (for alwey ich am scribling sum poem or anothir or having some idea). So ich am going ayeinst myn owene conscience to propose sum shewes of televisioun. Peraventure the mightie corporaciouns and compaignynes of produccion wil choose me to be an writere of televisioun ones see my wondirful conceptes heere on thys poost of blog. (It peyneth me soore to be an scabbe and an protest-lyne crosser, but my sone wisheth to goon to Oxford and my wyf desireth a patio. Forgive me, o ye merveillous writers of Holly-Wood: Chaucer nedeth a newe payre of shoes!)

Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2007: strike day 10

Quote of the day: "Without writers, I’m standing here talking to you like a dummy. And as fascinating as that is, no one will watch it."

Rebuilding Hollywood in Silicon Valley's Image (via Marc Andreesen)

...there are a lot of historical precedents even in the media industry for the model of talent as owners, going all the way back to the original United Artists in 1919. Some of those precedents worked great -- George Lucas, for example. Some flamed out. Of course, they were all up against the bottlenecks.

But here we are, living in a world in which the bottlenecks have suddenly become irrelevant.

Carson's Secret Deal (NY Post)

DURING the last writers' strike in 1988, Fox News entertainment guy Bill McCuddy wrote for Johnny Carson. The late-night king famously crossed the writers' picket lines saying he would pen his own material. But McCuddy and other comics sent Carson lines, through agents who secretly put out the word that non-union scribes could send in pithy punch lines.

Why Newspapers Love the Striking Screenwriters (Salon)

Why the journalistic fixation on the strike? The national impact of the strike (even a lengthy one) won't be great. But dailies such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, whose bottom lines depend on movie advertising acreage, will feel the pain if Hollywood closes shop.

Sympathy for the Drivel (Mother Jones)

"Won't somebody think of the pundits?"

Monday, Nov. 12, 2007: strike day 8

Quote of the day: "How can you make a movie without a writer?" asks manager Patty Detroit. "You can't!"

Studios: What to shoot amid strike? (Variety)

Studios that scrambled to stockpile scripts in advance of the writers strike are now forced into a Darwinian dilemma: They must pick the fittest projects, and perhaps scuttle the rest.

...Every production chief faces the anxiety-filled challenge of actually proceeding with greenlit projects that will shoot under unprecedented duress, and "bubble" projects that have solid scripts but incomplete casting.

...A producer who has five films on the bubble, however, estimates that as many as 75% of the "go" projects are actually "up in the air." Inevitably, some will end up on hold or the chopping block.

How Mr. Burns would Handle The Strike (from Ken Levine via writers-strike.blogspot.com)

BURNS: Smithers! What is that infernal racket outside?

SMITHERS: There’s a big rally. The writers are striking.

BURNS: Writers?! I have writers?

SMITHERS: Yes, sir. Remember you bought that network and studio so you’d get invited to David Geffen’s Passover Seder?...

SMITHERS: We could perhaps negotiate with them?

BURNS: What?! When I could let them suffer, lose their saving and homes instead? What good is busting the anti-trust laws if I can’t squash the defenseless?...

Solidarity (from Digby's Hullabaloo)

The derisive tone much of the media has taken to the strike is nothing new, by the way. Just a few weeks back when the UAW went on strike against GM, Jim Cramer was apoplectic on Hardball screaming, "They have to break this union! They have to break this union!"(and Chris Salt-Of-The-Earth Matthews nodded in agreement.)

And they have always been especially hostile to the Hollywood unions, which were forged back in the day with battles in the streets. The right to organize in the entertainment business was extremely hard won and in many cases those who fought it were later blacklisted as commies for their trouble. It's never been frivolous...

Perhaps the seminal event in Hollywood organizing history is called "The War for Warner Brothers"...

Why We Strike (The New Yorker)

We are not cogs in some machine. While many of today’s blockbusters are written by that machine, we are not cogs in it, despite having originally written all the dialogue and characters and plot that this machine endlessly recombines and maximizes. When a bitter cop with a shattered family and a monkey on his back flees a narco-terrorist’s fireball while cracking that he’s getting too old for this, some writer wrote some parts of that, some time back.

Nor are we trained chimps. The last decent show written by chimps was “Jojo’s Poop Party,” which was largely improvised.

OUR DEMANDS: An end to the lying. Just kidding. We recognize that, without lying, Management would be unable to exhale and would thus perish. However, we are asking for a manifold increase in White Lies about how we are brilliant geniuses and the like, and a corresponding decrease in Brown Lies, about what might happen in the future.

Piracy and the Writers' Strike (from the blog "Philosopher's Playground")

When you illegally download something and the network doesn't get any money for it, they call it piracy. But when you download something or watch streaming video with commercials and the writers don't get any money for it, the networks call it promotion.

Writers' strike: Will it scuttle press tour? (from TV Barn)

The reason the networks want out, according to Ben Grossman in Broadcasting & Cable, is that presenting midseason shows is "not worth the costs that can total anywhere from $250,000-$500,000 per broadcast network for each one-day event."

Hollywood strike underlines bleak outlook for movie business

...the pot of money that the producers and writers are fighting over may have already been pocketed by the entertainment industry's biggest talent.

That is the conclusion of a surprisingly bleak new assessment of financial dynamics in the movie industry titled "Do Movies Make Money?" The researchers' answer: not any more.

The report, by the research company Global Media Intelligence in association with its partner Merrill Lynch, concludes that much of the income - past and future - that studios and writers have been fighting about has already gone to the biggest stars, directors and producers in the form of ballooning participation deals. A participation is a share in the gross revenue, not the profit, of a movie.

And a pointed comment on the above at muditajournal.com:

Translation: If the stars who are so “sympathetic” to the writers want to help the writers’ plight, they should offer to take a pay cut themselves. If anybody can afford to trim their bottom line, it’s the stars making $20 million for each movie they appear in.

Sunday, Nov. 11. 2007: strike day 7

Quote of the day: "...the third stage of grief is bargaining."

---

Tired of working for (Internet) peanuts (via writers-strike.blogspot.com)

Glamor belongs to only part of Hollywood (Associated Press)

Most WGA members lead far from glamorous lives, and seldom earn beyond five figures each year. Yet like their colleagues who build sets, apply makeup and lay cable, they're the ones who keep Hollywood cranking the content.

Or not.

Writers strike could mean big changes in advertising (Reuters)

"Marketers have more alternatives than ever before on how and where to spend their money," said Brad Adgate, director of research at Horizon Media, an independent media services company. "There's more than the 30-second TV spot. There are opportunities out there and dollars are going to follow the eyeballs."

He added: "While television still remains the entertaining center of your living room, there is some concern that the longer this strike stretches out people's habits will change."

Schwarzenegger urges end to Hollywood writers strike (International Herald Tribune)

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, known best in his pre-politics days for roles as "The Terminator," said he is talking to both the writers and the studios, urging them to settle the strike that began Monday and has already forced several network shows to stop filming.

Another strike! Broadway goes dark (Entertainment Weekly)

More than two-dozen Broadway shows are going dark Saturday, as stagehands went on strike. For the past three months, stagehands have been in contract negotiations with producers; the two sides have been at odds over work rules and staffing requirements. The strike will affect 25 shows, including such tourist favorites as Legally Blonde, Hairspray, Jersey Boys, and The Color Purple. Off Broadway shows are unaffected, and eight shows will go on as normal because those theaters, some of them nonprofits, have separate contracts with stagehands.

Hollywood cliffhanger: will militant writers leave Tinseltown in the dark? (Independent, UK)

One intriguing victim of the dispute has been a new show, originally slated to air on a Time Warner cable channel, called Scabs. A press release announcing the show said it was about "two people whose lives didn't pan out as they had hoped and seek out companies with employees striking to find jobs as line-crossing scabs". The producers initially thought they would air the show anyway, but by Thursday they had changed their minds and decided the topic was just too provocative.

The material never goes on strike (SFGate)

I'm not diminishing the value of professional writers - of any kind - but it would have been interesting, if even for a night or two, to see how David Letterman, Jon Stewart, Jay Leno and all the other alleged quick wits of late-night television performed without a script.

It's not as if there's a shortage of material out there. Just read the news. Sometimes the punch line comes included.

TV Writers' Strike Leaves Jilted Authors Looking For A Bully Pulpit(NY Times)

When the chemistry is right, an appearance on "The Colbert Report" or "The Daily Show" can help propel a book to best-seller status. Shortly after Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, first appeared on "The Daily Show" to promote "Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower" in March, the book hit the New York Times best-seller list and rose to No. 5 on Amazon.com’s best-seller list, said David Steinberger, president and chief executive of Perseus Books, whose Basic Books imprint published "Second Chance."

The writers' strike as imagined on the series they created (Miami Herald)

How The Daily Show With Jon Stewart would handle the strike: By eviscerating the producers' bitter hypocrisy in preaching belt-tightening while personally getting richer.

How The Sopranos would handle the strike: In the middle of a scene, the screen would go black, and that would be it.

How House would handle the writers' strike: Despite seeming progress, negotiations break down suddenly, violently and mysteriously just before every act break, until the strike is miraculously resolved in the show's finale. Along the way, House makes a number of sexist remarks to Cuddy that sound mean-spirited but actually mean, "Let's get it on already!"