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I’ll post starting tomorrow but in the meantime express yourselves intelligently here. Given that the writers may have just enough pre-Oscars leverage over the next three weeks to quickly hammer out something less excremental, that is if the moguls can stop punishing them for striking in the first place, what should that be realistically using the DGA deal as a framework? As always comments are monitored.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Nikki, I echo everyone’s well wishes– I missed your “inside baseball” accounts of events last week, but I absolutely support your need to take care of yourself first.
As a WGA strike captain who attended last Friday’s captains’ meeting, I want to reinforce (and please forgive my caps) that WE HAVEN’T SEEN THE ACTUAL DEAL YET. All we’ve seen is a press release which has incomplete information, and has likely been presented as positively as possible, so both sides look like heroes.
As of Friday morning, the WGA negotiating committee was trying to get a copy of the actual deal from the DGA, so they could parse through it over the weekend and then give their formal assessment. In the meantime, I urge everyone NOT to form any final opinions yet, since all we’ve read so far are the Cliff’s Notes. Thanks for your patience and understanding!
Welcome back, Nikki, for another good reason: although I agree with others here that your overall effect is to whip people up a little more than is good for us with rumours and half-truths, the comments section over at United Hollywood has been taken over by the radicals. This has happened because, to dissuade the numerous casual trolls who once roamed there, it’s now not possible to comment without having a blog page. The majority of calm, moderate writers who might have a very good point to make in passing simply haven’t got the energy to go start up a blog simply so they can add their voice. As a member of the silent majority who believe the DGA deal isn’t good enough for us, but can surely be improved upon and thus should serve as a basis, welcome back. I now have somewhere to speak up.
“Sunset clause:” While it’s not a cure-all for the frustrations of WGA membership in not seeing some of their legitimate demands in the details of the DGA agreement, does it not present the opportunity to redress whatever falls short in the negotiated contract? Who really knows how the dollars will be flowing in content distribution in three years time? A sunset clause gives the Guilds an opportunity to adjust their contract demands based on data, not speculation. Why aren’t the Writers expressing their support for a contract that includes a Sunset Clause? Am I missing something?
I just want everyone to think a second…
When NBC asks everyone to subscribe to a “feed” of their TV show (think RSS)– that means your computer will *automatically download* the episode within an hour or so of when it’s pushed online… whether you watch it or not.
So explain how this 17-day no-residuals window is supposed to work exactly? Right now if I subscribe via i-Tunes store to free “Meet the Press” or “the McLaughlin Group” feeds, I get the show automatically within the hour. I might watch it, I might not, but it is on my machine until I’m ready. Both shows have ads.
Any fan of a show is going to subscribe to the entire season. (Right now I don’t think they can yet, but give the networks a couple months to figure out that having a viewer subscribe to a program will increase the likelihood they’ll watch… the ads). The networks will be falling over themselves to get viewers to subscribe to their shows because of the demographic info they can use..
Even if the networks for some reason don’t provide RSS feeds, the *fans* (and third party developers a la TiVo) will build tools to automatically download episodes when they first appear.
In short, the 17-day rule means no residuals for you!
R
PS- don’t bother telling me that this only applies to real-time “streaming” ad-supported video unless you’re prepared to tell me the necessary and sufficient technical/legal distinction between “streaming” and cached/downloaded content. And good luck w/that.
PPS– One (crappy) solution is to treat the show as a rental which expires 17 days after the initial release. If you download it the first day you get 17 days to watch it or it self-destructs. If you download it on day 16 you get one day to watch it. Of course, this is just begging to be worked around.. we’ll see how well Apple does with their timed 24-hour rental. Already people are reported to be changing their computer/ipod’s date to get around the time restrictions…
Welcome back Nikki!
Lackland’s idea is a brilliant, quantifiable approach to resolving the potential problems with the DGA deal. The Writers Guild is worried of cannibalization in the rerun market, as viewership naturally shifts to the Internet. This displacement of broadcast TV to Internet distribution will be pretty accelerated in the next three years (especially if these deals incentivize the networks to save money in the process — Justine Bateman wrote a good post about this on United Hollywood) — we already witness it when LOST viewers need to go the Internet, and I know many people who solely do their first-run viewing on the Internet already. This deprives writers of the traditional rerun income streams and a graduated shifting of that stream — based on the easily quantified numbers — could ease all sides. Remember, even if the WGA settles, SAG has the potential of shutting down the town in July if the fear of such cannibalization isn’t resolved first and foremost.
Shitty? Not perfect, not by a long shot. Writers need different things than directors. But the DGA wasn’t stupid and the strike gave them leverage. This deal isn’t great, but it isn’t bad. It’s totally framework. We need to stay calm and collected and do everything we can to force the AMPTP to do the same to we can negotatiate a deal and save our shows.
The following statement comes from Alfredo Barrios, a WGA strike captain and a former corporate attorney turned writer, who had this to say about the DGA deal:
“I was asked to comment on the DGA deal. I decided to wait a few days. Like most of you, I was waiting for more information about the deal than a broad sketch in a press release.
In the meantime, it’s my understanding that a small group of self-described “moderates” who advocated “patience” have ignored their own admonition and embarked on a mission to get as many names on a petition that essentially advocates that we should take the DGA deal, no matter its shortcomings – and as we all know, there are substantial shortcomings.
I’ve been heartened to hear that most people have resisted the urge to sign this so-called petition – regardless of whether they think the deal is generally favorable or bad. They know that the Negotiation Committee is about to go into meetings with studio CEOs in order to address problem areas in the agreement. And the CEOs seem willing to listen, given the leverage that we have at the moment. So why would you sign the petition, which only serves to undercut the Negotiation Committee’s power? You wouldn’t.
I won’t go into great detail about the DGA deal’s shortcomings. Most people know that the Electronic Sell-Through Rate is still abysmally low. As lawyer Jonathan Handel points out, the studios didn’t even meet us half way, and their rate only kicks in after certain sales volumes are met.
Most people also know that while the studios agreed to DGA jurisdiction over new works created for the Internet, it only applies to shows that have production budgets in excess of certain threshold numbers. Basically, if it’s a low budget Internet show, the guild doesn’t have jurisdiction over it. The problem of course is that most successful webisodes are low budget, and if you plan to create one, chances are you’d fall outside guild jurisdiction. So those threshold numbers need to move down in order for the jurisdiction provision to mean anything.
And then there is Ad-Supported Streaming… At the moment, the network rate for a rerun of a one-hour dramatic episode is roughly $21,000. The studios are now offering $1200 for a year’s worth of streaming of that same episode on the Internet, and this only kicks in after an initial two to three week period in which they would be able to run it for free. So as TV reruns become Internet reruns – and as anyone who owns a computer can attest, it’s happening now – our residual payments are obliterated. That’s why this proposal is characterized by many as a massive rollback. Remember, this is what we were fighting to avoid.
So what’s the answer? A flat rate closer to the existing network residual number? We can ask for it, but I think the studios will resist it. They argue that they’re still working out the business model for Internet streaming. They don’t want to be locked into a high flat rate number…
Which is why a graduated scale of residual payments makes so much sense. In other words, if a show streams on the Internet, and it’s successful (i.e., gets a certain number of hits), the writer of that show would get higher residual payments than the writer of a less successful show. It protects us and the studios. We both share in the upside. And if a show doesn’t do as well, the studios are only on the hook for a relatively low, initial flat rate payment.
I haven’t heard any reason why this wouldn’t work. I’d be interested in hearing what the CEOs have to say about it.
Some are asking: but would prolonging the strike be worth it? Would we want to strike for one or two or maybe several more months for a graduated scale and improved terms in various other areas? Fair enough. It is a cost-benefit analysis. And it depends – and this is critical – on what you think our leverage is.
The real question from my point of view would be: is it worth it to the studios to have us striking over a graduated scale that would protect them and us? I don’t think so. I think they want to do a deal now.
Before the DGA deal was announced, I thought the most interesting part of the deal wouldn’t necessarily be its substance – although important, we all anticipated it would have problems – but rather the timing of its announcement. That would tell you something about the studios’ timeline for getting this strike resolved. They back-channeled through the holidays and really pushed the DGA for a quick resolution. Remember, these were the same studios that wanted to make us feel the pain of the holidays to improve their bargaining position. So if they had more time, the smarter play from their own playbook would’ve been to sweat us out a little while longer. They didn’t.
They’ve taken a lot of financial hits over the last few months – much bigger than they probably anticipated – and have many more looming on the horizon (with the Oscars and the commencement of pilot season weeks away, and a potential SAG strike just months away). They realize it’s time to end this, and they have the power to do so…
… if they deal with us reasonably and fairly.”
Glad you are getting well, Nikki. We have missed your sound counsel. People say you are too pro-WGA. My reply is “Have you seriously read this woman? She bows to nobody. If she agrees with us, I take it as both a compliment and an acknowledgment that we are doing the right thing.”
If Variety can lie and say “Directors Make Big Gains in New Media”, despite the fact that by the DGA’s own admission they CHOSE NOT TO FIGHT FOR NEW MEDIA COMPENSATION, then Nikki can accurately report that the deal is shitty.
The number one problem with the DGA contract is a cap ($1200 per hour, presumably less for half-hour) on streaming residuals. Though, Internet revenues don’t currently warrant residuals equal to second-run TV residuals ($20k per hour, half that for half-hour, half that again on cable), they will someday. Internet delivery to your TV will eventually be the norm.
Removing the cap is the only way to protect BOTH SIDES!
academy screamer,
Yes, you are missing something. A sunset clause is nothing. The contract expires in three years anyway, so everything is up for negotiation. There are not teeth to the sunset clause.
In fact, the studios, in three seperate, past negotiations, convinced the WGA (and other unions) to take very minimal payments for home video royalties, cable work and residuals, and foreign residuals. Their argument was that these were new market segments that made very little money and may not grow. They promised to revisit each of these areas as they became more viable. THEY NEVER DID. We still get the same amounts for each of these now hugely profitable market segments.
WE CANNOT BE FOOLED A FOURTH TIME!
An uncapped percentage of distributor’s gross for streaming is the only way to a) not bancrupt the studios as their online business grows, and b) protect the creative community’s future.
It’s so simple. Really. What are THEY missing?
NIKKI – WELCOME BACK! LORD HOW WE MISSED YOU! Nikki, I emplore you to stay solid in your continued reporting! The DGA IS a shitty deal. The DGA is NOT the deal we want or need or have been walking the picket lines all these weeks to achieve. Please do not balk at the noisy but miniscule minority that are ready to blindly jump into whatever BS deal the AMPTP wants to give. I’m fed up with the whining candy-asses who just don’t get it. Who learned nothing from the last strike. Who learned nothing from the shitty dvd/vhs debacle formula of the 80′s. We are standing on the cusp of our future. We will NEVER have a better opportunity to get what’s right and fair than we have now. Short-sightedness and blind trust in ‘revisiting’ forumla’s is what got us here in the first place. I for one, am ready to walk the line for as long as it takes to get what’s fair. And i implore our fearless leaders to not be pressured by the weenies! Yes, we all want to go back to work, but the future is now, people. This is our shot. We have to stand strong. United. blah blah blah and all that jazz.
I think people are overemphasizing this whole thing about the $1200 flat rate for streaming being an incentive for not running broadcast reruns per se. Remember, even with a 20K residual, running a first rerun of a scripted show only costs 100K-200K. As John Wells pointed out in his widely circulated letter, this is cheaper than anything else you can put on the air, even the crappiest reality show.
What’s incentivizing networks running fewer reruns is, unfortunately, that they tend to be out-performed by even low-performing reality shows often. And this is not going to be impacted either way by a streaming deal. Case in point: Lost. Before ABC stopped running ‘Lost’ reruns, the reruns were doing about a 1.5. Which is pretty awful. But it still only cost them 100K (or whatever the residual package is) to put that on the air. Whatever crappy reality show they replaced it was costs at least 500K. But it’s doing way better than a 1.5, so it’s worth the extra 400K.
So, that’s the problem. The cost savings of broadcast reruns are often outpaced by first-run reality shows, which cost more than reruns, but which often do a lot better ratings-wise. I don’t see how accepting a $1200 cap is going to change this.
Klaatu: not entirely true. There are different types of sunset clauses, and actually there are all sorts of complicated procedures for opening or re-opening sidebars in this type of negotiation. Without seeing the language of the DGA sunset clause provisions, of course, it’s premature to comment. But it is not a given that it is toothless.
I hear the writers got the producers back to the table today for prelim talks; is that right?
Those who comment that we don’t know if this is a good deal or not – You don’t understand the metrics or structure of the money on the internet, or how media deals are being done on the internet. As for the flat rate – I was making many times more than the flat rate being offered for writing media content with running times of less than five minutes. That was six years ago. The money is getting bigger. The deal is not a good one.
The model is changing and evolving. The television re-run residual came to be, based on how business was being done at that time. TV originally was live – then, networks were able to fill programing time slots – with little or no cost without paying residuals. It was a way of finding a compromise. The networks saved money by not having to pay for a full program – the writers gave up copyright while getting some semblance of compensation commensurate with the real value of the content they created.
All non television reuse of content should be classified as one type – Reuse. The Compensation should be based upon a fair percentage of the value of that to the studios. Ad revenue, sales, rentals, etc – should go to the bottom line of reuse. If the distinctions between “types” of re-use went away – studios would be free to re-use in the way that made the most sense for the particular project. Writers would be compensated for their work. The arguments of What kind of use would go away. a Simple formula would be best.
Also the idea of a diminishing percentage should be considered. In terms of the rank and file – more writers would benefit if a larger percentage were paid initially – with a small percentage if it goes bigger. A larger percentage of a small return does not cost the studios much in terms of real dollars – but nets more writers more money in the long run. A smaller percentage of runaway hit, with lots of revenue costs them less – and still nets a good return for writers – since a slightly smaller percentage of a larger pie can still result in more actual dollars in the writers pocket.
Start at 5% from first dollar or stream, once a certain number is hit in volume – drop to 3%, Then another Volume number , 2%, then 1%. or some such formula.
I know it goes against conventual wisdom – but maybe that’s what’s needed to solve the stalemate.
Lackland- good idea but the problem is that, even if/when 100% of television has migrated to the internet, it is not clear that the revenue per viewer will be anything close to what it’s like in broadcast TV. The internet basically makes all advertising cheaper, because there are more entities selling adspace, which means downward price pressue. Let’s say ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ was only on the internet and got roughly the same viewership it does now. Well, advertisers could get the same exposure by buying space on Google or Facebook. And in fact, can target their demographics more specifically. (And by the time this migration happens, I think you’ll see a lot more video ads on sidebars and banners throughout the web, taking advantage of the same bandwith increases that well allow for TV web broadcasting.)
So, in the future you’re trying to plan for, TV networks no longer have anything close to the monopoly on big-market ads that they do now. Which means, a lot less $$$.
So that’s why your proposal wouldn’t work.
It’s nice to see you back, Nikki. Don’t worry about the rumors. Imbeciles must speak speculatively regardless of fact.
As for the deal, I only want a deal that was worth a strike. This is my criteria:
1. Will WGA members who have to write checks to repay strike loans receive more value from the deal than the amounts that they write on those checks?
2. Will the BTLs look at the WGA deal and think it was worth a WGA strike?
I’m not going into the details of this percentage and that percentage. Those are technicalities.
Fundamentally, the deal needs to be worth the strike.
It will be like pornography. We’ll know it when we see it.
Mike
Sorry, have to respectfully take issue with your arguments. Re Sunset Provision, the only teeth it can have in practical terms, is a subsequent strike. As a former M & A guy on Wall Street, once a $ is set, you’re stuck with it, barring war. Re web advertising, embedded ads, i.e., those that can’t be fast forwarded through, receive a premium, and when combined with salient metadata represent the opposite of what you’re arguing — not a dilution of ad strength, but a kind of silver bullet ad that finds its desired customer and commands his/her attention, leading to higher transaction conversions. Also, your supply side argument re the cost of advertising doesn’t hold water. That assumes a finite number of goods and a finite amount of buyer attention time. More advertising doesn’t equal cheaper advertising. Just, fortunately or unfortunately, more advertising. Extended to the general economy your metrics would assume zero GDP growth ad infinitum.
Glad your feeling better Nikki.
The DGA deal seems better than what they were offering the WGA the first time around, but that doesn’t make it very good.
Everyone sees the numbers for the internet are just wrong. It’s bad enough that it’s $600 for 26 weeks, that’s after a 24 day “promo” period.
What is is that? Does that mean I choose to watch the show during the “promo” period I don’t have see any advertisements? I doubt it. So for the first 24 days the studio is the only one making money how is that promotional.
I mean we’re talking about $600 this is not a lot of money, kids working at McDonald’s will make $600 before the promotional period is over. And whose to say the keep it up for more than 24 days?
If the guild went on strike to get a fair deal let’s hope this isn’t the one they take.
And people have said it before and they’ll say it again, but the Sunset Clause is some flowery jabberwocky lawyer speak. The contract is up in three years. The whole point of this is to discuss the deals of a new contract and for both sides to talk about the problems with the last one. And the Sunset clause is to make sure they do that… umm…but they were supposed to anyway.
So is what they are really telling us is that in every contract that didn’t have a Sunset Clause they had no intention of negotiating again and they all went home giggling like school girls because there wasn’t a Sunset Clause?
Who are trying to fool with this mumbo jumbo?
Here’s my clause idea I call it the “Next time you keep your butt in the chair while we negotiate a deal instead of throwing a temper tantrum like a child Clause” maybe it’s a bit wordy, but if they want to take away sympathy strikes I think it’s they least they could do.
I can’t believe the DGA were conviced a “Sunset Clause” means anything. A precedent is a precedent. Three years of entrenchment later, it will be engraved in titanium.
First of all, welcome back Nikki and please take care of your health.
All this talk about “progress was made because Nikki Finke wasn’t posting…” is perhaps the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. If anyone is still too stupid or naive to figure out that the AMPTP never intended to negotiate with the WGA and always intended to negotiate with the DGA because they’d make a quick, crappy deal, then they don’t deserve to be in this industry. Spend your time instead buying shit from late night infommercials — you’re their target customer.
And Kudos to Nikki for calling it what it is — a shitty deal. If you’re a WGA member and you just want to get back to work, then admit it. It might be for a very legitimate immediate financial need. But don’t insult the rest of us by pretending that further analysis is going to make these numbers any better than they are. They suck. For chrissakes, you don’t get anything for the first 17 weeks something is re-run on the internet. Imagine if the same thing applied currently to tv.
Furthermore, the .6 number is pathetically low. In practical terms, it’s the DVD rate plus a few more pennies.
We have some leverage now. We’ve all suffered greatly to get here. Let’s allow our leadership to fight for a few more weeks to make it all worth it. Let’s not lie to ourselves that a shitty deal is a good one.
Top Five Reasons You Know the DGA Deal is Shitty:
#5. AMPTP shills are already on these message boards selling it hard.
#4. My agent called to say it’s spectacular and we should take it today, before it goes away.
#3. Years ago, my agent called to say the DVD rate was spectacular, and we should take it today before it goes away.
#2. Craig Mazin posted a letter that called the deal “Good. Very Good.”
…and the number 1 reason you know the DGA deal is shitty: John Wells is the one who wrote that letter!
To Rational Thinker, who complained about “radicalism” and who wrote:
“Rational people in the WGA are muzzled by louder, angrier and bitter people in the WGA.”
Really? Those are easy words to throw around but I’ve been front and center since the beginning of this strike and have seen NONE of that. What…do you have one or two pissed off friends you’ve been talking to and are generalizing to the entire Guild?
It is easy to condemn Nikki for weighing in with her opinion on the deal. Since her opinion of “shitty” is pretty much how almost everyone feels about the DGA deal…what flames exactly is she fanning?
The assumption not articulated but inherent in your POV is that the AMPTP’s behavior alone is not enough to “fuel anger and resentment” amongst writers. That the proposals they have offered from the beginning aren’t enough to piss us off. It is radicalism that is the problem! It is people like Nikki! Uh…no.
If you start from the possibility (possibility!) that the AMPTP’s behavior alone is enough to tick off almost entire Guild – then you don’t need to look for echos of radicalism or your former family dynamic to explain the situation. So just for shits and giggles…think about that. And look no further than the AMPTP. You’ll get all the explanation you need to explain the situation.
There aren’t ALWAYS two reasonable sides to every story.
The only leverage window I can see now IS now. The Oscars and the billions it represents to the studios prove that NOW the ONLY time to make a deal. Once that window has passed, this town is out of work until June 30th and maybe beyond.
As an employee of a multi-camera show shut down the DAY the strike was announced, and as an actress who receives residuals, I can see both sides of the issue. I don’t want this strike to be in vain, there’s too much damage to lose the future, ( my apt. in March for one), but the rules of television and development are changing as I type this. This business will NEVER be the same. We are fighting HUGE corporations here, and they WILL throw out the baby with the bathwater. Let’s not be the “babies” here.
Peggy Lane O’Rourke