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The Screen Actors Guild released the following statement in response to AMPTP’s trades ad Monday:
LOS ANGELES (December 14, 2008) –“There they go again. The AMPTP’s ad is great fiction, with convoluted bullet points and confused messages — and, it’s completely wrong.
Here’s the truth:
– Under the AMPTP’s current offer, streaming of new television product on hulu.com and other new media platforms pays day performers about $46 for the first year’s use. Not per run of the episode, but for the whole year, and that’s only after a 17-day FREE rerun window. Peter Chernin, Chairman and CEO of News Corp., told industry analysts that his company’s ad-supported online programming site, the already $12 million profitable HULU.com, was a “replacement for reruns”.
– Under the AMPTP’s current offer, there is no union jurisdiction for original made for new media projects made for budgets under $15,000 per minute. That’s the vast majority of all new media. We have signed more than 800 productions to our SAG new media agreement. If we can do it, why can’t the AMPTP? We are certainly willing to show them how it’s done.
– Their proposal for original programming running on abc.com, nbc.com, cbs.com, and other network new media platforms is – zero. Yes, seriously, zero.
– Management is gutting the contract through the demand that we remove force majeure which has been a protection for actors since the first SAG agreement in 1937.
– Management has also demanded broad and sweeping changes to the more than half-century old clip consent provision which guarantees actors the right to consent to the use of their image and to be compensated for that use.
– Minimum increases in traditional media doesn’t do actors any good if there aren’t any minimums in new media.How can that be anything but “the end of residuals?”
How can that be anything but a situation in which it is “impossible for actors to make a living.”
How can that be anything but “A massive roll back.”
How can that be anything but “Life or death for SAG members”Make no mistake about it, this is exactly what management is offering in original programming streamed on new media:
Minimum Rate – Zero
Residual Structure – Zero
Overtime Protections – Zero
Forced Call Consideration – Zero
Young Performer (Minors) Protections – ZeroManagement is offering a lousy deal with “Zero” in new media and is threatening the promotion of non-union work in a residual-free environment without minimum compensation.
That could be the beginning of the end for actors careers and livelihoods.”
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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SAG, this is truth?
? Couldn’t find that Chernin quote, care to back it up? And if it is that profitable, who deserves that money? Not the folks that run the website, or get the ad buys, or any of the other unions that have a similar deal? Why do actors deserve more? Name a good reason, not that you’re the face of the show. You don’t work any harder than the PA who is getting paid $650.00 a week, no fringe/benefits, and that PA is thankful to be working in this industry.
? $15k per minute, huh? Again, back it up please. Considering SAG isn’t the one fronting the money to create new media, its no wonder you can draft a contact around it. You basically have zero stake in it. Put your money up front and then talk.
? I imagine a reason the dot com platform is at zero now is b/c no one has figured how to make money off those shows. New media is figuring out its place in the world, right now they don’t have companies that want to buy ad space on it. So literally, your evil studios are putting money into something that they aren’t making money off of, and are waiting for that convergence of media, art, and business.
? I’m actually with you on this one. We should all have a force majeure clause.
? Specifics? Is the studio using a Stallone in “Rambo” image to sell Rambo related stuff? I think you said they were changing the provision, so you’ll still be paid…for standing there…getting your picture taken…in a costume made by other people…photographed by someone else…on a set built by others…either we should pay everyone involved with that image or you should be happy you’re getting paid at all in this profession. You’re deserved of some money, but how much do you really want?
? There are no minimums in new media because, again, no one is making money off of it. Maybe in a few years we will, but until then, raising everything else should suffice (for at least 3 years).
And really…zero on everything? End of residuals? Impossible? Life or death? End for careers and livelihoods? Wow. Talk about fear mongering.
There’s reality, there’s rhetoric, there’s chest-thumping politics, and SAG, you’ve created the actor’s red scare.
I’m not saying the AMPTP has been in the right – but they compromised their unfair positions and gave in to the other unions.
I hope this is worth it to you. You are no longer preserving yourself, you are damaging others. You are damaging an entire industry, destroying people’s careers, hurting their families. Considering most of you aren’t working actors anyway, I hope you enjoy waiting tables and tending bar. I’m sure it’s satisfying.
The Questioner -
Asked and answered at a prior SAG Town Hall.
Yes, the moguls freely admitted in the room that they fully intend to thoroughly exploit the low-budget exemption if they get one.
Pilots are expensive, especially because the major networks like to make a lot of them, fiddle with them obsessively until they’re as homogenized as possible, reject most of them, and put the blandest on the air. It’s amazing a show like the Office can survive such a system.
The studios are looking to directly exploit hungry film students and others with a pittance of seed money in exchange for all manner of rights on the cheap in a totally non-union environment. Look what the studios already have in the DGA and WGA deals. The hungry film students will sell themselves for cheap because they figure next time at bat they can command a better number.
There are two problems with this for most hungry artists. One, the studios are counting on the next wave of hungry students right behind them. Two, and perhaps more important, the creative guilds that would back up that better number next time out are being negotiated into irrelevance.
SAG is drawing the line the DGA was stupid or too timid to draw, and the WGA wanted to draw more clearly but didn’t because of a potential internal revolt.
Those of us watching the moguls’ actions in new media and what they were telling Wall Street knew the DGA was being completely hoodwinked. The WGA, lamentably, did not fare much better. Justine Bateman’s analysis of the coming implementations of technology and changes in distribution was directly on the mark. It is her work, along with strong research by SAG’s team, that is reflected now in the guild’s position that the new media provisions in the AMPTP’s offer constitute a major rollback.
The AMPTP is engaged in a bald-faced full-court press to gut the creative guilds. SAG is the one union that stands between them and the end of the relevance of the creative guilds in Hollywood. Everyone – including the BTL unions, some of whose benefits are fixed to creative guild residuals – is now relying on SAG to hold the line against the free and wholesale exploitation of labor – creative and other – in the entertainment industry.
You SAG people are fooling yourselves if you think you’ll get 50% for strike authorization, much less 75%. Honestly, we’re in Jonestown territory at this point.
It’s not happening. You know what will happen?
Alan Rosenberg will send out his authorization ballots and after they come back showing a substantial lack of support for a strike, then he will officially have managed to lose even more leverage in these negotiations (something I didn’t even think possible).
You people are real good at cutting off your noses to spite your faces aren’t you?
Well done.
Why does anyone need an actual strategy when you have intrasigence instead?
Interesting…..but what I find more disturbing is the fact that Alan Rosenberg called off the National Board Meeting. Apparently the NY contingent was not very happy: with neither the strike authorization vote, nor the fact that Rosenberg called this meeting at the last minute (I believe it was announced on Friday to happen Tuesday), not giving them a chance to plan. In addition, the NY contingent wanted to know why, in the day of videoconferencing, was a face to face meeting necessary. Rosenberg’s response: cancel the whole thing. He also didn’t feel that a videoconference would have been ‘productive.’
Sounds to me like he’s trying to quiet dissent on the Executive Committee. Not a very good perception for their members to have of a supposedly healthy labor union facing the challenges outlined ad nauseum on this discussion board.