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UPDATE: Gavin Polone Explains Himself
The Prince Of Darkness, aka producer/manager/ex-agent Gavin Polone, went on television today proclaiming that the writers’ strike is positive for the earnings of studios and the WGA has lost its leverage. Yeah, the stoning starts now. On the one hand, I always applaud Gavin for never being afraid to go on the record with his opinions. On the other hand, those opinions are incredibly crackpot. (There’s good reason his production company is called “Pariah”.) In the TV interview with Fox Business Network (which couldn’t even get the spelling of his name right), Polone said:
On how the writers’ strike is benefiting the studios:
“This strike, right now, at this point in time, is positive for the earnings of all these studios, I’m sure…Now, these companies are so vertically integrated that they’re going to make money from a lot of different sources…They’re making more money right now because they’ve lowered their costs…The studios are using this as an excuse [to save money]…What’s going to happen is that the people who aren’t watching Lost right now are going to say I’ll go watch something else on ABC Family, which is still owned by Disney. The same corporate conglomerate will still make money.”
On how the writers’ strike is benefiting producers:
“In a weird way, it has allowed me to push forward a lot of scripts that would normally have taken a long time to get to the point where they could be produced because everyone likes to tinker with them. Not having the writers available, and having the threat of a SAG strike, which is potentially going to happen on June 30th, has gotten the studios to not tinker at all with the scripts and to push more things into production because after June 30th they might not be able to produce anything.”
On how long the strike will last:
“I think it’s going to go on for quite a long time. I think it could go one for easily six months. This whole thing is a debacle. It really has been mishandled by the Writers’ Guild.”
On the writers losing their leverage:
“They [the writers] just gave away their leverage. All their leverage was before they called a strike. That’s when they had the gun to the heads of the studios. They misread the strength of the studios at this particular time and those running the studios. These aren’t guys you can push around by walking outside of their houses with signs. Sumner Redstone isn’t going to give in because he sees people with signs outside of the studio.”
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Nikki, you might hate what he’s saying, but it’s what many people inside studios are saying, and as far as the financial realities go, also probably true. I’m a studio employee who sympathizes with the writers and I am upset at what’s going on, but Gavin is repeating what he’s heard from studio insiders. Studios are okay with letting this strike drag on, and that is something the the guild and its leaders didn’t quite reckon on.
I hate to say it, because the guy sounds like a blowhard, but he’s probably right on almost every point he’s made. Perhaps on one point I disagree. I think the studios probably wanted a strike all along. So Nick Counter’s bombastic behavior at the negotiating table, i.e. not coming through on internet residuals as promised, was calculated to piss off the WGA so they’d have no choice but to strike. As I’ve said in a previous posting, for the studios, it’s all about the bottom line. There’s no emotional component to this for them – simply a cost calculation as to when their losses from the strike are canceled out by their savings from cutting non-performing shows, canceling development deals, firing dead wood from within. I’m sure they know exactly when they’re going to reach the break-even point and, at precisely that moment, they’ll come back to the table with a non-insulting offer for internet residuals. I feel the WGA is wasting a lot of emotional energy being angry – as the studios aren’t operating in a human, personal way. Kind of reminds me of the remake of “War of the Worlds.” Of course, those seemingly indestructible giant aliens were eventually brought down by little viruses. Perhaps the metaphor will carry through. All I can say is, when we finally do get back to the negotiating table, let’s make them PAY. Put DVD’s back on the list of demands, and make them pay much more on internet than they thought they’d have to pay. THAT’s the point where we’ll have real leverage because THAT’S the time it will no longer be profitable for them to be out of production. Let’s drag it out at that point and make them BEG!
WGA writers have a lonnnnnnng memory.
If you are a show runner and you have just read his dribble…promise us you will NEVER take his call again!
I don’t understand the argument thats been floating about that the studios are “making money” off the strike. Okay, I’ll grant you not having to pay for production of episodes saves money. And wiping the slate of pilots may save money. But if I owned a pizza shop, not buying dough, sauce, and cheese would also save me money, but wouldn’t make me any either.
Reality TV can substitute. So can game shows. But will TV networks go to an all variety format essentially? I doubt it. And I doubt they will dramatically alter their way of doing pilots for next season. Eventually they will have to come up with something to plug the holes in their line up.
Oh, and this quote:
“Sumner Redstone isn’t going to give in because he sees people with signs outside of the studio.”
Ah, yeah, we know that, Gavin. It ain’t about the picketers, it is about the work stoppage. In case he didn’t hear.
And Sumner sure as eff is not going to let Rupert Murdoch siphon more viewers from cbs to American Idol or whatever Freemantle (non sig) product Fox puts up. Sumner might be pissed at the WGA but he has got more vile for Murdoch. Google.. “My Space” to find out why, Gavin.
Uh, it’s “Polone” not “Palone.” And while I don’t want to agree with him, I fear that he might be more right on some of these issues than not. I don’t think that I’d call what he has to say “crackpot,” which doesn’t make this site look particularly “fair and balanced” either.
I’m a WGA member in good standing.
And I really hate to say this, but I think Gavin “beelzebub” Polone might be right here. At least if you look at what he’s actually saying: This strike is not really hurting the studios yet.
Sure, they probably didn’t want it. And eventually it will start to hurt them. But right now..? I doubt it’s making much of a dent in their bottom line.
You can look at the strike many ways. But if you look at it as a business negotiation (which is, I’m guessing, how the Sumner Redstone’s of the world are looking at it) then it sure seems like the guild mishandled it… Time will tell. But if this strike goes for six months, then it wasn’t worth it. Not from a monetary point of view… The guild membership will not gain as much as they loose in that six months. (We won’t even mention the cost to the rest of the people working in this industry… Because we’re thinking like businessmen for the moment.)
This really seems like a strike we should have planned for NEXT time. When there was real money to be gained or lost. When a six month strike would have been worth the cost.
But the fact of it is, for better or for worse, writers tend to operate from place of emotion — and not practicality.
And here’s a general question for anyone out there with legal/business affairs expertise – how can the studios legally invoke force majeure when they, themselves, are the reason the writers are still on strike? Show runners have agreed to come back if the AMPTP will return to the bargaining table, yet the studios have refused. That’s like causing a hurricane or flood yourself, then calling it force majeure. Can someone please explain?
RE: stuck in development — Very good points. The writers have already proven that the studios are lying one way or another about online profits. Now, apparently, the studios are ready to volunteer the fact that all the money they spend on creative development is a waste.
Man, I’d LOVE to be a fly on the wall at the next round of shareholder meetings.
1) Gavin’s a blowhard who is happy to be on television.
2) No studio executive knows how the strike is going — unless you are Ron Meyer or higher you are not privvy to that information.
3) The guys who are really running this realize that studio exex talk to writers and use them as mouthpieces to disseminate these cockamammie ideas.
4) Content is king.
Just keep up the pressure and don’t worry about the rest of it. Network TV and Features can’t rely on retreads forever. Keep hammering away at the labor union connections so the politicos have to get involved and let the fans speak up. They can’t break you if you don’t let them.
In the past (five years back) TV writers got HUGE development deals and were not expected to work on a show while they sat in their office coming up with ideas for future shows. These days almost every writer with a development deal (of which there are far fewer and much much less money involved) are put to work on current TV shows as co-execs or consultants. They make up more than half the staff in a lot of hit shows. It would make no sense for the studios to fire these people by ending their deals early (force majeure.) It would leave their hit shows without half their writers (and the most experienced ones) when they returned. Try to scare the town if you like, I just don’t buy it.
I might not agree with the Studios are benefiting financially but all the other points he made are pretty much spot on. The fact that someones has a different opinion on the way things are going and someone want his address is pretty amusing.
Who is the WGA historian because they should be reminding their members of a couple of historic events in motion picture history.
1) Nick Counter has never come out on the wrong sides of one of these labor disputes and I have been on the losing side of one of the 3 I have seen in 30 years
2) And of all the guilds to have your members turning each other in and threating to boycott those who see things differently is a little reminiscent of the Black Listing scandel of the 50′s.
Shameful
I’ll agree the guy sounds like a tool (and I can’t believe you even heard about the interview Nikki – I would sooner gouge my eyes out than watch FOX News), but a lot of what he is saying is spot-on. In fact, I think all of it, except the crap about leverage. The studios are currently benefitting from the strike. Its allowing them to trim the fat, drop the overhead, and be rid of a whole lot of unproductive contracted folk. I work in a studio, and I see it – there are lots of people with fat development deals, under contracts for insane money that aren’t producing a damn thing. The studios are taking advantage of the strike to clean house.
And by the time the housekeeping is over with, AMPTP will be inking the DGA deal, and as per their usual, WGA will use that as a template. And then the rest of us non-writers will maybe be able to get back to our jobs. If we are lucky.
I’m surprised the studios’ stocks on Wall Street haven’t plummeted thanks to a strike that everyone seems to assume will last until June of next year and the studios tossing out press released about how much money they’re losing.
We’re starting to hear a stupid argument very often and I’d like to nip it in the bud. It’s the one about studios saving money because the strike prevents them from having to develop. That’s like saying a restaurant is saving money when no one come to eat, because they don’t have to waste all that money on buying food.
QUOTED FOR TRUTH!
We caught them off guard by going out in November. Remember that, writers.
The AMPTP wants to use force majeure, BUT they would have done that anyway. They wanted this strike, absolutely but they wanted it in June! And they got screwed because they were counting on a strike while sitting on a nice fat stockpile of content.
So now of course they’ll keep us out so they can save whatever money they can, but that doesn’t mean it’s net positive for their business.
Because…they’re in the TV and movie business, and we just took a lot of it away from them.
Gavin is like that brother that you hate because he is always right (and an asshole about it.) Like him or hate him, his record speaks volumes. I doubt he will lose sleep or writers.
Polone may be a jerk, but he’s not stupid. If you listen carefully to what he says, he’s telling you exactly what the studios/networks are thinking: (a) the studios/networks don’t feel pressed to make a deal right now because they believe they can keep revenues flowing while cutting costs; (b)the studios/networks expect a six-month strike; (c) the studios/networks believe that the WGA sacrificed their Queen on the opening move of the game leaving the Writers Guild at a severe disadvantage.
Polone’s comments are validated by the fact that they explain exactly what’s going on at the studios/networks right now: (a) they’re busy drawing up new 2008 business plans that reflect decreased revenues and deeply cut costs; (b) they’re not responding to calls to come back to the negotiating table because they have no intention of talking to the WGA until the Spring of ’08; (c) they’re planning to hold the WGA up as an example to DGA/SAG when they talk to them next year and tell them not to make the same mistake as the WGA and walk out at the strike deadline or they’ll suffer the same fate.
Call Polone a jerk if you must, but don’t dismiss what he has to say — at least not until you use it to study the mind of your opposition. That’s how you win the game. Eventually, the best player gets to say, “Checkmate.”
“Somebody tell again, why do we need these guys?
Comment by dante writer”
Because by and large, you guys don’t have the money, organizational skills, or the stomach to do the dirty work that has to be done to make your scripts a reality. The arrogance displayed in the comments of the writers here is really staggering.
In the short run, it does help them. But in the long run it helps us b/c new media is worth fighting and establishing a fair rate for.
It may take until the actors get involved, but at least the AMPTP won’t be sitting on a pile of scripts and movies in the can then.
But they are trying to scare us. Stay strong. Help take care of other crew that’s been laid off. It may be a while…
Although, I am curious as to why CBS (not diversified, needs scripted TV) would offer its head on a platter to Fox who stands to kick its ass with AI.
Why do people keep using the example of a restaurant stopping to serve food to equal the studio’s halting the production of television shows? GE makes microwaves. Disney has a higher rate of return from the theme parks and cruise lines. Fox has MySpace, newspapers, and SkyTV. The restaurant analogy only works when the restaurant is the cafeteria in a museum where 90% of the money comes from admissions. Believe it, the only writers who can wait this out as long as the studios are the ones who could afford to strike in the first place.
WGAE member,
The studios can and will invoke force majeure as they please. There’s no way stop them short of the WGA ending their strike.
Here’s why: A duly-elected WGA president called for a strike that had been overwhelmingly approved by its members. He then stated publicly that the writers, by striking, intend to “inflict as much pain as possible” on the studios and networks. Immediately after the strike was ordered, the writers stopped working and started picketing the studios and networks. There’s no question, from a legal perspective, that the WGA caused this strike.
Hey, thanks for all of the attention. I want to make sure that I get more than Ari.
I wanted to clarify a few things. First, that I am not saying the studios will never be hurt by the strike. Probably in 9 months to a year when the feature film pipeline dries up, they will have a big problem. Before that time, they will not be producing expensive new scripted shows and they will cut overhead drastically, using force majeur to get out of contractual obligations. This cuts the expense side of the profit equation drastically. The revenue side will not be damaged significantly. Look at the network numbers right now: same as usual. You’ll see them hold for quite a while. They have a lot of sports coming up and more reality programs on tap, including Idol. Ad dollars will continue to pour in. Procter and Gamble has to sell their soap somehow. Yes, people who are fans of particular shows will not watch the reruns of those shows but they will watch reruns of shows they haven’t seen before. I’ve seen every I Love Lucy and every Bewitched but I never saw them on their first runs. Therefore, the networks will continue to make money. During the last strike, the big three networks ratings dropped slightly but Fox and the cable nets went up a lot. If fewer people watch NBC but many more watch USA, Zucker may still show overall profit stability. And, I don’t think NBC will be hurt that bad, anyway. Sunday night football will do even better opposite reruns on ABC.
Also, these companies have many ways to earn money. CBS owns a huge outdoor advertising business: if companies move away from TV advertising they’ll buy more billboards and radio (CBS also has radio). Fox owns MySpace: they’ll also benefit if ad dollars leave broadcast TV. Maybe people will go to theme parks because they’re sick of reruns: good for Disney and NBCUni. Maybe people will read more: CBS owns Simon and Schuster and Newscorp owns Harpercollins.
I do think the WGA has taken the wrong course in being so aggressive and vituperative. They just encourage the studios to dig in deeper, so they don’t show the other unions that they will bend to pressure. And, as I said, those companies are run by tough individuals who aren’t afraid of fighting it out.
So, in short, the WGA will have to hang in for a long time to hurt the big entertainment companies. During that time, many writers will get into bad shape financially. People who are in related businesses will be hurt even more, as they aren’t getting residuals from the reruns that will be all over the schedule, like many writers do. Did you know that writers on Letterman are probably getting $2500 in residuals per week, and up, for every week that he stays off the air? When people at panavision or catering companies start losing their jobs because of the strike, there will be a backlash against the writers. I don’t think they can hold out under the resulting personal or outside pressure of a long strike. Some will scab. Others will protest within the guild. The end result will be they will go back, on bended knee, and negotiate the deal that they probably could have made had they not gone out on strike and just kept negotiating.
Finally, to those of you who said shit about finding out where I live or blackballing me, I want to say that this is the kind of behavior that causes most people to lose sympathy with your cause. The guild’s telling members to turn in others who they think will scab is particularly repugnant. Is this a writer’s union or the Soviet Union? I should be threatened because I expressed my opinion? Really, calm down and act like adults. If your ideas and leverage are so strong, you don’t need to threaten people to win the battle.
Gavin
I have no stake in either side of this strike, but I am a lawyer who has negotiated many many cases.
Negotiation 101-never overestimate your value.. It appears to me that the WGA negotiators totally overestimated how much the studios really need them. From all outward appearances, not just comments by trolls, the studios don’t really care if you come back or not. If they did, the deal would have been done. If you really had the clout that your decision makers thought you had, things would never have gone this far. From your own membership stats, very few members are actually making a good living as writers–what this means is that very few writers are actually valuable commodities to the studios. As far as public support, yes it is strong now, but after awhile, people go back to their own lives, and are going to be annoyed that their shows aren’t on, and certainly aren’t going to boycott Sony and the others’ products over the Christmas season.
Just my opinion, but you are never going to get what you want, because you never have according to all the blogs. Every strike has ended with the writers getting screwed and taking less because they have to get back to work. I think you should learn from the past, and realize that the studios are, and always will be, calling the shots. If your leaders truly understood your value as the studios see it, they wouldn’t put you in a situation that will undoubtedly lead to financial ruin for many members.
And, just a personal observation…I hear that Hollywood is dominated by white males and discriminates against women. Women would have done a much better job of negotiating this strike than the powers that be (on both sides) whose egos can’t all fit through the door at once. It would have never gotten to this point….
One point we might consider here in deciding whether to take seriously the words of Mr. Polone et al.
If the strike really WERE hurting the studios financially, and they knew it, what do you suppose we’d be hearing from them?
Um, yeah, exactly. We’d be hearing what we’re hearing now — no problems for us, doing fine, lots of Dancing With The Stars ready to go.
I will concur that the writers are in the tougher position for two reasons: (1) They actually give a shit about what they do; and (2) They’re honest. But they got past part (1) enough to be willing to give up their jobs for an indefinite amount of time, and that was a big hurdle to overcome. Do you suppose there would be any negotiation required at all if Les Moonves and Ben Silverman had had been forced to give up their paychecks for a few months for the sake of standing their ground?
“Every strike has ended with the writers getting screwed and taking less because they have to get back to work.”
More to the point, the strikes that have been threatened in recent years haven’t come to pass because the writers couldn’t agree to give up working.
And the studios knew that, and used the opportunity to shaft them with a series of shittier and shittier deals. This was the year that the writers had to break the cycle. It’s a precipitous time — we’re within shouting distance of the day when 90% of TV shows and movies are viewed in a capacity which the studios deem “promotional” and therefore exempt from revenue sharing. (I don’t believe I am overstating this. I certainly think it would have sounded MUCH crazier if I stood up in 1985 and said that in just over a decade, home video would be a bigger revenue source than theatrical, and within two decades theatrical would be practically an afterthought.)
Maybe the writers won’t get what they want this time either, but you know what? They’re doing everything in their power to get a fair deal. If they have to go back to work eventually and eat shit, they’ll do it; they won’t let their membership go hungry forever; but I really admire the fact that they had the guts and the will to work against their immediate financial interest in the name of protecting future generations.