China’s Wanda Group Agrees To Pay $2.6B For AMC … 
Weinstein Clarifies ‘Sapphires’ Remarks; Best … 
How Agencies Did At This Year’s Upfronts: New … 
BOMBS AWAY! ‘Battleship’ Sinks To $25.3M … 
‘Lawless’ Premieres As The Weinstein Company … 
David Guarascio And Moses Port To Run … 
‘Beasts Of The Southern Wild’ Co-Writer Lucy … 
Fox Searchlight Fetes ‘Beasts Of The Southern … 
D.V. DeVincentis Sinks Teeth Into ‘The Night … 
Universal Buys ‘The Disciple Program’ As Mark … 
‘Madagascar 3′ And A ‘Big Brother’ … 
UPDATE: Facebook’s Big IPO Trading Day Results In A … 
UPFRONTS 2012: The Year Of Underdogs, Comebacks & … 
YRF’s Uday Chopra To Finance Nicole Kidman-Starrer … 
Cannes Swirls With Talk Of Convergence Between Distributors … 
TNT & Lifetime Looking At Cancelled CBS Drama … 
Women Dominate Early Competition Films As Marion Cotillard … 
Doug Liman Reacts To ‘I Just Want My Pants … 
Disney Sets Jesse Wigutow To Script ‘Peter And The … 
Anthony Mackie In Step With ‘Runner Runner’ 
Should You Buy Facebook? A Few Things To Consider Before … 
2ND UPDATE: SAG met this afternoon with the AMPTP and said it needed more info to analyze and review the Big Media offer. So don’t expect any new developments until next Monday. But probably not until July 8th when all sides find out whether the AFTRA/AMPTP was ratified. Then Hollywood travels into uncharted territory. (See my two SAG/AFTRA/AMPTP articles in LA Weekly: here and here.)
Here’s SAG’s statement tonight:
Los Angeles, July 2, 2008 – The Screen Actors Guild national negotiating committee met with AMPTP negotiators today to present a series of substantive questions on the employers’ proposed package. Guild negotiators and staff will further analyze and review the AMPTP’s responses over the next several days in order to prepare a response to management’s proposal. The Screen Actors Guild national negotiating committee is working hard to achieve a fair deal for actors. The committee is mindful of its obligation to advance actors’ interests and to safeguard the protections our contracts afford them. Guild negotiators are engaged in, and committed to, the negotiating process and are confident that an equal commitment from management will allow the parties to reach a fair agreement that serves the needs of Screen Actors Guild members, their employers and the industry.
UPDATE: The AMPTP issued this statement tonight:
On Monday AMPTP presented SAG with our final offer, containing more than $250 million in additional compensation for SAG members over three years, groundbreaking rights for actors in the new media area, and a basic economic framework that has already been accepted by the DGA, WGA and AFTRA in four separate labor negotiations this year. On Wednesday, we met at SAG’s request for 4 hours to answer SAG’s questions about our final offer. SAG asked for more time to study our final offer and indicated it will contact the Producers on Monday. We remain hopeful that SAG will advise that it is accepting our final offer. No further meetings are scheduled.
Previous: I hear that today’s negotiating session will probably just be a preliminary discussion about the AMPTP’s “last best final” offer made Monday to SAG. The actors guild will still have to do a comprehensive analysis and further review.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
Loading ...
Kudos, 35th St.
One of the few measured assessments of actor issues I’ve read on this blog. The AFTRA/SAG explanation made sense. Your “Bob Smith” example was fabulous. I will say, however, that the future of the internet is not certain. There is a bandwidth problem. Even without broadcast TV moving to the internet, it’s not clear that with all the you-tube, viral video viewing, there will be any bandwidth left. Comcast and AT&T are already instituting slow-downs. I’ve read projections that concluded the internet is headed for a massive slow-down over bandwidth by 2010. These facts don’t portend well for a shift to internet delivery. There is no business model. The assertions on this site and others that warn of the end of broadcast TV are fanciful and without basis. You ever try to watch an episode on your computer? It’s jerky and slow. Pension, Health and Welfare are the basis of a labor agreement. Lack of roll-backs in those areas, along with jurisdiction over New Media, should be the fight. In other words, the DGA contract. Your battle with AFTRA must be saved for another day.
Scott-
I’ve heard those some bandwidth projections too. Yet some folks like to point out the tempest in the teapot.
Did anyone catch the recent news about a Pew studiy that found there are quite a good percentage of Americans that just aren’t interested upgrading from dial-up to Broadband even if the prices come down. You can read the article yourself by copying the link below.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/vdunet/20080703/ttc-us-broadband-take-up-slows-6315470.html
The part I found most interesting is that a quarter of Americans still have no internet access at home at all, broadband or dial-up. But most of the poor and elderly have television sets, even if they’re using rabbit ears. I don’t see broadcasters abandoning that share of the market.
I can’t watch a whole streaming episode of anything. With the current limitations in bandwidth, there’s just something about the video compression that drives my eyes wonky after a few minutes even if its a good stream.
I don’t think broadcast moving to the internet is as far as a leap as say the 1928 Felix the Cat broadcast was to HDTV, but I think that having the internet be the sole distribution method for networks is quite a ways off both in terms of infrastructure and acceptance.
35th street-
Good comment. Let me take it one step further. Simply wanting something is not enough. You have to know how to get it. All the leaders of all the unions fumbled the ball. You stand in front of Goliath and want to be David but wanting isn’t enough. Alan might have desire but again that is not enough. He may be right and I believe all the unions are fighting for a just cause but again, not enough. Desire and being on the side of “good” is not enough to win.
When you watch a playoff game and one team is down 36 points and there are 3 minutes left you don’t send in your best players to get hurt trying the impossible. You acknowledge and move on.
What can we learn from all these negotiations? That one union can not go it alone. The AMPTP knows this. So they spread everyone out. In three years when the contracts expire and we are here again how are we going to win? Well, we ALL have to go in together. How can we do that? The first union whose contract expires must work without a contract until every unions contract expires and we are ALL out together. Then when DGA, WGA, AFTRA, SAG, TEAMSTERS and IA are all out, then we AMBUSH. Now this is going to take a lot of trust between unions. The AMPTP’s only recourse is to force a lockout in time to disrupt unity and in enough time to force the last union to go it alone.
So far we now will have a 7 month gap. The time between when DGA signed and if/when SAG signs. Its a long time to work without a contract, but you WILL still work. As long as there is trust between the unions. It will take the AMPTP a few months to figure out what our plan is and even longer to put a lock out into action. Remember they are a slow moving behemoth of tangled bureaucracy.
The key is to acknowledge this round and move on quickly so the 7 month gap doesn’t become 8 or 9 months. A strike with over 500,000 would pack a punch. IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO WIN. TOGETHER.
So for the next 3 years we should all get busy mending rifts. Making alliances and fortifying a single unified game plan. You can bet the AMPTP is not going to sit around idle for the next 3 years, why should we?
Notgoingtotip
What seven month gap? The DGA’s contract expired June 30th, same as SAG’s. The gap will be between the WGA and SAG.
NotgoingtoTip
Unless and until these “creative” guilds recognize the work of the BTL s we will get nowhere. I’m all for striking as one. It appeals to the communist pinko fag in me thank you Arlo for such an eloquent phase. The point being is the reach out. The directors actors and writers must reach out to each other and then reach out to the IA and teamsters. We have numbers. So do you. A strike by a half a million will truly fucked them up.
Lets try CSI Belgrade and see if it plays.
Steve said:
“I hope when SAG realizes it has wasted a month trying to undermine its sister union, which wouldn’t help your cause anyway, YOU will make a deal with the AMPTP and let everyone get back to work in the film industry.”
In addition, I don’t need over-paid, wealthy fat-cat actors like Sean Penn telling me how to vote my AFTRA ballot. I could care less what the man thinks. Excuse me, but the man doesn’t speak for the majority of actors and he wouldn’t know an unemployment check if it bit him in the ass.
So, yes Steve, SAG is run by a bunch of timed-out, elitist actors who feel quite full of themselves. They have no strategy except to point fingers and place blame. Instead of fighting for us…they turn their attention to AFTRA….I say throw them all out when its time to VOTE FOR A NEW SLATE OF PEOPLE IN OUR UNIONS WHO CAN TRULY REPRESENT ACTORS!
35th St –
I actually think we agree. As I said in my post, Guilds are good things for everyone. It’s short sighted to think that screwing a Guild is good for business, and vice versa. In other words, it’s a negotiation, a tough negotiation generally done by seasoned professionals.
No one doubts that Alan Rosenberg is a good man who has nothing but the best intentions for actors, but he has handled this particular contract negotiation with an appalling lack of savvy. And let’s be honest with each other, everybody knows it…even SAG.
And as for AFTRA, I guess there’s some of the resentment I’m talking about. You can go on and on about all the bloody history of the two Guilds, but at the end of the day, the fact that neither Guild found a way to negotiate together is laughable.
No one needs to remind anyone that Acting is a very, VERY tough business that doesn’t dovetail nicely into the economics of middle class life. That said, I hope that the Guild and the AMPTP manage to hammer out something that helps support and sustain income and security for all actors.
I don’t think broadcast moving to the internet is as far as a leap as say the 1928 Felix the Cat broadcast was to HDTV, but I think that having the internet be the sole distribution method for networks is quite a ways off both in terms of infrastructure and acceptance.
Comment by BTL Mom — July 3, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
With broadcast television going completely digital in Feb 2009, the infrastructure is already in place. Considering an “internet option” on your television being as easily accessible as a wireless keyboard, acceptance isn’t that far behind.
This isn’t 1995 when Microsoft “InternetTV” was attempted.
e-
The 2009 switch to digital is for over the air broadcasts and has nothing to do with the internet. It was supposed to happen back in 2006, but the networks, stations and the folks that make the converter boxes for people without cable or satellite complained they weren’t technologically ready back in the early 2000′s (gosh it feels weird saying “early 2000s”) and the date was pushed. The switch to digital was mandated by the FCC so they could regain control of the analog VHF and UHF parts of the frequency spectrum so they can lease those frequencies in the future for other uses than broadcast television.
The internet in its current form is not going to be capable of sending everyone in America 1080p HD streaming video anytime in the near future. It’s taxed enough already with people streaming 4×4 videos off of You Tube. You’ll need a connection speed faster than DSL or Cable Internet to do it. So no, the infrastructure is not in place. You could ask just about any employee of the companies that would be in charge of that type of switch, Verizon, AT&T, DirecTV or even Microsoft and you’ll get a similar answer.