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All of Hollywood is talking about this video. And the reason why is because of the growing phenomenon in this strike that the Big Media moguls keep talking out of both sides of their mouths. I've posted previously about how, one minute they're using the media to plead that gross participants or deficit financing in the entertainment business is bleeding them dry, and the next minute they're boasting to Wall Street about incredible earnings and the unlimited future of the Internet.
What the fuck?
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BRAVO, BRAVO, BRAVO. Nail on the head brilliant. The sheer, unbridled GREED and unwillingness to do the right thing is utterly appalling. How can anyone negotiate with this attitude?
“What the fuck,” indeed. What the fuck, everyone.
If the heads of the studios really believe movies and TV are not profitable, and yet they’ve all led their entertainment divisions for years, shouldn’t they all be fired? Immediately, before they cost their stock payers more money.
Well ok, powerful and true! I would be curious to see the dates, when they said such. Les Moonves has always been a buffoon to me but in that clip he came across as a mobster, a evil, greedy mobster!
If they are lying to writers, that’s unethical.
If they are lying to investors…isn’t that illegal?
I wish more journalists would sum up their argument with “What the fuck?”! No other phrase properly captures the only rational reaction to what these fuckers are saying.
This is really quite simple, Nikki. The reason their profits are so terrific is that they aren’t paying the writers. If they start paying us, then they’d be broke. Duh.
The Internet is the future. If writers don’t strike to define the payment scheme for this medium we will be back in the 1970s when we didn’t see the VHS and cable market. It’s insane. Writers – the creators of this entertainment – our largest export behind Aerospace – should be able to share in the billions of dollars that the studios make from our efforts.
Brett
Oh, what “WEBs” they weave…
Absolutely Brilliant, thanks Nikki. Made my Day.
Truth shall overcome.
Well, if it were a trial, (and it wasn’t fixed), that would be it, game over. Hubris, arrogance, double-standards — and I keep being told to be more moderate and conciliatory – wow. wow. wow.
Exactly.
Well, I gotta hand it to you Nikki. What used to be a site where you can get balanced news about the strike has now become a shill website for the WGA. Are you getting paid by the guild? Maybe we should have someone look into that..
God dammit I love that video. There is no way they can backpedal from this!! I am renewed for another day on the picket lines and will send that link to everyone I know.
The showrunners need to buy airtime during Sunday Night Football, or during the three top shows on television, and air this as an ad.
The controversy alone of the networks not allowing this ad over the airwaves would cause more people to want to see what the ad is about.
Shawn Ryan, Steve Levitan, Shonda Rimes, David Kelley, put you money on the line and buy an ad during one of your shows…this will get the public talking.
Haven’t the last seven years been the EXACT same thing? Lies, damn lies and statistics! Well, there hasn’t been much I’ve been able to do about W & Co., but, as a member of the WGA, there’s certainly something I can do here – NOT GIVE IN, NOT GIVE UP! Not now, not ever.
Good video, but one thing jumped out at me as a little misleading. I’m not saying studios aren’t making money on online video….but when they say “digital,” it doesn’t mean just online video. It means any ads online, and I would wager that the bulk of those advertising dollars are from banner ads, not ads running in online video content.
Has anybody shown that video to our local parakeet cage liner, the LA Times? Or any of the other oddly misinformed mainstream media outlets?
Believe it or not, the whole question comes down to faster internet connections. In your last post, Mr Diller is being a bit disingenuous. Almost anyone can see what is about to happen on the internet. The video pictures are going to get bigger and better. In Japan, internet connections are 30 times as fast as the U.S., and you can put the video onto wall screens. And that will change Hollywood radically. So the technology is available. Why isn’t it here? Because they have to rewire the last mile into your house: make that wire bigger, upgrade it. How do you do that? By creating consumer demand to get it done. More about that in a moment.
But once it is done, anybody can phone in high-quality screen entertainment. All you have to do is make it. Google has an advertising revenue system ready to go. You will get paid automatically from ads placed automatically over your videos. People will see different ads based on what they like, what they have been looking for — but you will get the revenue. Google wants to be in the ad-to-eyeball matching business, in order to take a cut — a completely new sort of business, worth gazillions. Google isn’t going to control content. The more, the merrier.
It’s going to put the studios out of business. Production and post-production technology are already getting cheap. Distribution and revenue will be taken care of automatically by the internet. That’s the end of the need for the studios. Writers, directors, actors, producers, will form around projects and do them. Financing will be ready to follow proven results. You will have to do your own advertising and marketing, but hey, that shouldn’t be too hard.
All that is needed are faster internet connections.
In the interim, the studios are going to screw the unions for the last drop until the studios themselves are obsolete. I am not a writer, but in my opinion, the WGA ought to do two things at the same time: (1) authorize its members to do little YouTubes right now and ask SAG to collaborate. And (2) go to YouTube at the same time and ask for revenue sharing for a strike fund. This would scare the hell out of the studios, and at the same time it would give YouTube/Google the “promotional” boost THEY need to get consumer demand to take the web to the next level.
nyguy123, Nikki isn’t a shill for the WGA. She’s a shill for the truth, justice & fairness (sounds patriotic and it’s true) and the little guys/gals. (Yes, there are a lot of struggling writers in the WGA.)
Do you really think the 2 sides are equal? Tell you what, maybe Nikki will shill for the producers (aka Big Money) if we (I’m not a writer, I just support them) can take over the LA Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, NY Times, etc. Fair exchange, right?
I would happily contribute to a fund to get this on the air.
These guys are no better than the CEOs at Enron and World Com. Same exact people, different companies.
Agreed- For instance, I actually saw the Rupert Murdoch interview the clip is from, and he was clearly talking about MySpace.
Honestly, I don’t care! They know it, they’ve said it elsewhere, they’re saying it behind closed doors right this minute. And they’re not negotiating in good faith because that implies they’re capable of good faith. Just what I needed to refresh my feet for another week of walking in circles. A-holes.
When was that Rupert Murdoch interview?
Has anyone got the numbers for what part of all this digital profit is due to scripted programming produced by WGA members?
How much internet content is now generated by non-professional internet users? Most of youtube, myspace, etc, etc. You think this will change?
This Lee Arnold guy makes a lot of sense.
“One minute they’re using the media to plead that gross participants or deficit financing in the entertainment business is bleeding them dry, and the next minute they’re boasting to Wall Street about incredible earnings and the unlimited future of the Internet.”
Sorta like how, one minute, the writers are saying they just want a piece of new media “profits”, and the next minute they are saying they won’t stand behind cost recoupment?
What portion of all these digital profits come from work written by WGA members? Directed by DGA members? Performed by SAG members?
Lee A Arnold is wise to the fact the studios fear they’ll go the way of the record companies because of the internet. But the studios have a small window of time now to “strengthen the good that remains.”
At this moment, if they strike a fair deal with the writers, they can maintain and may even thrive as the internet matures. But if they let this Civil War get much past Fort Sumter, they will lose the Old Paradigm of how movies get made in Hollywood forever to YouTubers, Google or whatever fills the void.
No one who fights over money is ever really fighting over just money — or so it is said. Writers are sick of the overall injustice of crafting charms on development exec’s charm bracelets. They are sick of playing slavey to Ol’ Mastuh.
Note to the moguls: set the slaves free before Gettysberg makes you Appomattox yourselves out of the entire studio system as it stands. Then spend some of the hundreds of millions of your own salaries to figure out how to use the Internet keep the motion picture business in business. Here is a clue for you — something Eisner told me and my dad in 1985 during the then nascent cable/vhs revolution: “Story will always be king.”
I think I have this logic figured out. If the shareholders are asking, the profits are in the billions. If the writers are asking, the profits are $0.00.
To me, the remaining mystery is what the hell happened to the federal mediator, and why can’t he make all sides sit down in a room and — through the magic of the media — take a look a the conflicting testimonies? And ask the AMPTP, “Which time were you lying?”
Mikey — Actually, in the Charlie Rose interview the Murdoch clip is taken from, he talks broadly about the Internet’s impact on all media — you’re right that the specific example he goes to after the “golden opportunity” line is MySpace, but he also talks about the potential for using News Corp.’s content online. And the Murdoch quote that Rose makes reference to is even more explicit about his intention to make money off selling content online. (From Murdoch, on the BBC’s Five Live in Jan. 2006: “I think we’re on the eve of a golden age for media, but all these wonderful inventions are nothing if you can not put something on them. You’ve got to have content and that’s what our business is, creating or reporting news and creating entertainment.” That, to me, sounds like the “golden age” he has in mind involves selling WGA members’ work on the Internet.)
The Rupert Murdoch interview was with Charlie Rose in February, 2007. In that comment, he was not talking about MySpace particularly, but as part of a digital revolution.
The quote out of context is a bit misleading, but it is clear in the interview that News Corp intends to use the internet to get content all over the world.
What I think this video really impeaches is the idea that they need to wait and see where the revenue will come from. They are very deep into developing online revenue streams, and to think they won’t figure it out for three years is proposterous.
They want a free ride now, and would demand it again later.
There are very few senior executives in any large corporation who didn’t get to their positions by lying, cheating, and throwing their co-workers and employees under the bus. The movie business is no different. It takes a certain ethical and moral flexibility to rise to the top of a large corporate ladder, regardless of industry. Once they rise to the top they feel entitled and they ultimately come to believe that their employees are greedy nuisances they’d rather not deal with. The few executives who don’t rise to the top through unethical practices usually get there through luck or good connections. There are exceptions, of course, but they are rare. Spend a year at any large corporation in the world and you’ll see the same kind of pathological behavior from senior executives. Why would the movie industry be any different?
I think even a lot of writers are confused about this. Residuals are not a share of profits. Residuals are not paid based on profits at all.
Residuals are a small fee for the use of the reproduction. It is a “manufacturing” cost. If you resell DVDs, you pay the people that made the disk, the package, the artwork, and the people that made what’s actually on the disk. Either for each one, or in bulk that accounts for every one you attempt to sell.
You are not allowed to attempt to make a profit on something without first paying for its “manufacture.” If you sell lamps, you don’t pay for the porcelain, wires, steel and labor AFTER you’ve made a profit. They are the cost of the attempt to make a profit.
Why do you think all businesses require investment? Because you have to risk money in order to make money.
Writers are not investors. They have no say in how the money is spent. That is why they bear no risk. Just like the people building the lamps don’t. That is why they don’t (on a MBA level) share in profits. And why they don’t care about cost recoupment.
Because THEY ARE THE COST.
You have to pay for the product before you can try to make a profit. And if every employer was allowed to skip labor costs for what they are selling, EVERYTHING would make profits. If they could get writers from Vietnam that could write scripts as well as they make shoes for Nike, THEY WOULD.
Duh.
not a writer wrote: when they say “digital,” it doesn’t mean just online video. It means any ads online, and I would wager that the bulk of those advertising dollars are from banner ads, not ads running in online video content.
What do you think drives people to the web sites to see the banner ads? Streaming shows. And those shows have both banner ads all around them and video commercials ambedded in them. Oh, yeah, and product placement in the actual content. Oh, and companies like Warner Bros. also sell you the Internet access to view their ads. And companies like Sony sell yo uthe computers to view their ads.
Enough apologizing for the poor studios. They are making BILLIONS off the writers’/actors’/directors’ creativity. They can pay a small percentage in salaries.
Sickening that you can watch them lie and still support them.
They have to raise money because of ballooning costs and star participations? So they hype the potential markets to potential investors?
just a thought from a cooler head
So they can raise money to cover rising production costs from the investment sector? To hype a new potential market because their profit margins are shrinking from profit participation, prints and ads costs and ballooning production costs? Because the DVD libraries have disappeared but for Disney?
just a thought
Instead of talking about purchasing air time for this video to be shown, how about lobbying/e-mailing cable news shows to show it while discussing the strike? Sometimes they love showing internet videos because it’s so groovy and hip and now. Maybe an Olbermann would play this. Hell, it’s under two mins. You could fit it into a segment on the strike in general.
Just a thought.
It seems that all parties in this conflict are certain about one thing: the future is online. So lets ignore the fact that below-the-line labor suffers most from this strike, and that paying writers for scripts and not for repurposing the products based on those scripts perhaps might be valid if you put writers on a payroll with benefits and so on (like the workers in lamp factories, paraphrasing “Jimmy”).
regarding the promises of the digital age, Lee Arnold made a reference to the importance of the “pipes” (you know, broadband bandwidth). That seems to be true – but I think may be ultimately misleading. The studios have gradually retreated from producing movies, instead focusing everything on marketing and distribution.
As internet is primarily an open P2P communications infrastructure, this completely disrupts the gatekeeper model in journalism (hence the panic in the news industry), or the bottleneck model in, for example, film and music.
In the short term, fighting off anyone who wants to share in online revenue is a solid business purpose (to please stock market analysists). but in the long run, it seems – and I may sound too hopeful here – that talent, creativity and innovation may be a more promising investment.
Assuming for a moment that Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL (the “Fab Four”) will win the fight for Net neutrality, they and companies like them will be in control of distribution and access. producers and consumers of content – whether professional or amateur – will have to go through them. but they do not operate on the premise of gatekeeping – more on the level of forwarding, “gatewatching”, annotating, aggregating, and so on.
In other words: what will have lasting value, is compelling content. How it will get to whoever wants to consume it, is in the shortterm hugely important but in the long term tremendously irrelevant.
my 2 cents