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UPDATE: Marshall Herskovitz just made contact with me and helps clarify aspects of the quarterlife deal with NBC raised in my earlier post (see below):
"I never said that our ownership structure makes us exempt from the strike. What I said was that the scripts for these six hours were finished before the strike began. What I also said was that I have already contacted the Writers Guild and offered to negotiate an independent contract favorable to the writers. It is our right to do that since we own the show, regardless of how NBC might feel about it. Do you think it might possibly be in the Guild’s interest to negotiate a contract that gives writers the gains they’re looking for from the big media companies? I think so. Why don’t you ask Patric Verrone how he feels about it? I did.
"I really want to address the moral question. First of all, this deal with NBC was in the works for a long time, since considerably before the strike. They had a right of first refusal for network distribution -- so I had no legal grounds to say no to them. That's important.
"But more important to me is the fact that I'm an independent production company in television -- an extinct species brought back to life. The fact that I can negotiate a separate deal with the WGA is highly significant. If enough companies do that -- for instance Google as you mention in your column -- the AMPTP will lose all its leverage. There is a long history of this. During some previous strikes, the WGA was willing to negotiate independent contracts with non-AMPTP companies so that they could keep working while AMPTP companies couldn't. It's literally the mirror image of hiring scab labor to break a union. I'm a scab production company, and happy to be of service.
"You really should ask Patric Verrone how he feels about it. We had a very cordial conversation the other day where he was supportive of what we're doing and open at least to discussing an independent contract. I know the issues involved in the strike are complicated, but please don't leave out what I said in my op-ed piece. I am delivering completed episodes to a network where they have not even seen the scripts. This is absolutely unprecedented. Creative freedom may be less measurable than the concrete issues now in contention during the strike, but it's just as important to writers."
Previous: There's an awful lot of strike talk, and squawk, about Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz (the team behind thirtysomething and My So-Called Life) selling their 36-episode Internet show quarterlife which just debuted on MySpace.com to NBC as a six-episode hour-long network series to run during the WGA strike. (Watch Episode 1 and Episode 2 here.) It's reportedly the most expensive online video series ever produced. 
This marks the first time a program made for online distribution has been picked up by a major network -- although the script for quarterlife was in fact passed on by ABC a few years ago. NBC has paid for the rights to air the show in the U.S. sometime in February, plus internationally, on DVD and on the web. But there are many questions, the biggest of which is whether it's morally right that quarterlife, as an Internet venture, may be protected from the writer’s strike. 
(The show had been financed by Herskovitz and Zwick with advertisers and private investors and they retain 100% ownership and creative control. NBC agreed to become a partner in quarterlife by paying a license fee that was much less than what is paid for conventional shows.) And that's what Herskovitz's and Zwick's writer colleagues are so incensed about since the duo are both WGA members (using SAG actors in the series) and they're helping NBC program quality content during the strike. This, after Herskovitz recently railed against what he sees as the creative stranglehold the large media companies have put on show creators as well as voiced his support for the writers' strike. On the other hand, others are suggesting that this is the first wave of an independent production future for writers and could lead, say, to Google and the WGA striking a deal.
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Does “quarterlife” refer to the amount of time it feels like you’ve spent watching one episode?
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
See? Your Union is weak.
This show is already shot, something like 30 eight minute episodes that add up to 6 hours (or something). So there’s no scab writing going on here or anything, although of course it does feed the pipeline when we’re trying to shut it down, so that’s not so great.
However, I believe I read that any future episodes would be produced only if NBC agrees do them under current WGA proposals, which is really great.
I am foggy on this, anybody know more facts?
I am sure the WGA welcomes those who identify themselves as scabs…It makes it easier to round them up…
BTW, there is a reason why ABC passed and NBC desperately, whoops, I should reiterate, anxiously welcomes anything that stops their ratings loss. Though, the way Zucker’s luck runs he’ll be the head of GE by the end of the strike.
Does anybody know if quarterlife was written under a WGA contract?
Wow, the guys behind Thirtysomething turn out to be douchebags, what a surprise.
A few points:
1. Crazy as it sounds, the strike may be over by the time this airs in February, if in fact it ever airs.
2. Go to Quarterlife.com. Go on, I dare you. If you can spend more than five minutes watching this crap, you’re made of stronger stuff than I. And as for the much-touted social networking aspects of that site? Ugh.
3. This is actually good for the WGA, since it shows how desperate NBC is for content. Any content. Next thing they’ll be buying a pitch from a Nigerian email scammer.
“quarterlife” means that one-fourth of the episodes ordered will live.
So this was written before the strike? I see mention that ABC passed on it a few years ago. If the WGA membership plans to lynch these two guys, then you better lynch everyone who is making money off a script finished before the strike.
It’s demoralizing and enraging to see the guild’s top talent, the very people who should be championing the cause — the only people, in some respects, truly in a position to help us get a good deal — sell us out to the enemy by providing content to fill the void the strike aimed to create.
Thanks Ed. I guess you do have a thing for Blood Diamonds.
The deal was done before the strike… we can be no more angry at NBC for this deal than we can be about replacement series episodes of, say, Jericho.
And yes, this is the future, AMPTP: if we can secure funding, then what do we need you for? The internet is just a complex system of tubes (shout out: Sen. Ted Stevens!) and my tube can be just as good or better as your tube — and mine can be cheaper, faster & funnier because I don’t have your idiotic executive tree structure and standards & practices division watering everything down.
The funniest bit of this story will be watching Zwick/Herskovitz sell this internet-first show through iTunes, thereby proving that it IS possible to monetize internet-first programming into paid-for internet downloads, thus utterly demolishing the AMPTP’s fallacious arguments about the WGA not needing jurisdiction and that no one has figured out how to make any money off of the internet.
Hmmmm.
My first impression at reading Hershkovitz’ op-ed about this in the LA Times was that there was something smarmy about it – that he was using the strike to promote his series.
And now that I’ve read your post, Nikki, I’m convinced of it: Nowhere in the LA Times did Herskovitz mention that this was originally an ABC pilot script that got turned down.
So what’s the big deal about this?
Just this: Instead of taking some wildly independent stand and reaching into their pockets to produce something they came up with for the net, these guys got paid by ABC to write the script. Then, they just repurposed it. It’s not a big difference, but one can assume that the pilot script was written for a WGA signatory, and they got paid health and pension on it. So it’s not entirely as if these guys sat down, looked at the internet, and said “hey, let’s create something , and pay for it ourselves.” Sure, they picked up the 30k production costs (which, I might point out, are far less than they probably got paid by ABC.)
My point is that this whole thing isn’t as clean as it seems, and it would have been nice if they’d admitted in the first place that this was basically a WGA project.
Heroes? Visionaries? I don’t think so.
Is it just me, or is that the exact same plot from an old episode of thirtysomething?
A deal between the WGA and Google — this is what Law & Order showrunner Rene Balcer is touting on his youtube picket-line interview. Z & H’s timing isn’t the best but this deal is the wave of the future.
I’m interested in what other more educated WGA members have to say as I don’t know the sequence of when the NBC deal was made. However, I thinks it pretty timely. It shows the Studios, if they don’t want to pay fairly for our work, perhaps Google will. Quarterlife, and the way it’s done, is the future..
http://www.100daysinbed.blogspot.com/
My So-Called Flop.
I can see both sides, but ultimately I think it would have been real nice if Zwick and Herskovitz had shut down the show during the strike — as many showrunners with much more on the line were willing to do — in solidarity with their Guild. I’m not sure, though, that I agree with the snipe about them helping NBC program content. NBC may have a stake, but Zwick/Herskovitz OWN the show, and if more creative producers were able to own shows like they used to (c.f. Bochco, Cannell, etc.), then things could be a lot better for writers.
Les, Rupert, Peter and friends, are you watching? One day in the not too distant future we won’t need YOU at all! Offer us a good deal now or we’ll take what we do elsewhere and cut you out of the loop altogether. And who knows, maybe those internet guys at Google won’t give such destructive notes. At least not for twenty years or so…
K-
Methinks thou doth aha too much.
No…”quarterlife” refers to = it will take most of you writers your entire life to be 1/4th as smart as Marshall & Ed. Congrats to you Marshall & Ed.
Jimmy Kimmel just announced on National TV that he doesn’t need writers to host the American Music Awards. I left this message on his message boards:
“Really? You’re going to regret having said that when no one writes anything for you to say. You’re only as good as your writers. You should be ashamed of yourself. Not cool, dude. Not cool at all.”
If you want to let him know how you feel log on and leave him a message on his board.
http://abc.go.com/latenight/jimmykimmel/index?pn=index
It was “thirtysomething” not “twentysomething.” Every WGA member needs to pay attention to the quarterlife deal/history. Create great stuff and own it. Period. Stop fighting so hard to set a new, improved low-point for the “minimum basic agreement” compensation. Instead, encourage the bulk of the membership to start acting like owners. If they work to strategically establish the multitude of media executions for a great script/good idea, then they should be compensated from every drop in the revenue bucket. If they merely write-without more-then they need to get in line behind those who’ve orchestrated the multitude of media executions. You can’t secure this compensation however with the delicate “ax” of collective bargaining. You need to study Zwick and Herskovitz then seal a deal for a web direct show with an unstruck company (likely to primarily be in the business of commercial production).
You guys can’t see the forest for the trees. This is an example of writers being empowered and BEING THE OWNERS. Instead of looking at them as some sort of “foe”, “scab” or “douchebag”, why not look at them as groundbreakers and inspirations?
They are positioning themselves as entepreneurs of the digital age. But they are really aging writers/producers who have totally lost touch and decided to upload their crappy series that nobody else would touch on the internet.
Hey Nicki, I mean really, I love you, I refresh you 30 damn times a day, but that last sentence was just… sloppy. Google and the WGA? Striking a deal? The same Google who screws WGA writers all day every day on YouTube? Hah. Talk about a non-starter. It’ll be Al Gore Day on Pluto before the WGA sees Google on the side of the writers.
Oh, and thanks for kicking Arnolds butt. We love you, Nicki!!!
Be careful what you wish for. If the Googles of the world are the future of television, the entire structure of the business will change, and not for the better for writers. Should this come to pass I think you can say farewell to: blind script deals, writers on staff making anything above whatever scale is established unless they are super-stars, the inefficiencies of pilot and development season which create hundreds of jobs for writers (and actors and crew) for shows that are never aired– along with all the other aspects of Hollywood business culture which keep most of us employed. There will be about two hundred writing jobs instead of 1000+ every year.
I’m glad for the clarification. Yes, in 1988 the WGA made a deal with independent Carsey/Werner who had a majority of their shows on ABC at the time, thus helping to hurt the unity of the AMPTP at the time.
Thanks to the first president Clinton signing the 1996 Telecommunications Act into law (aka the Destruction of Quality TV Act) there are almost no indie production companies. Given this deal was made before the strike and done by writers acting as independent producers, I can only say BRAVO. Stinky timing but I’d rather have this on than another reality show. At least if this hits NBC might remember the importance of scripted shows.
This is a great deal for all writers. It opens the door for a new business model. Take your vision straight to the internet with no studio notes. All you need is funding.
That being said, the show is an ugly example of old guys trying to write for young people. Made me cringe a few times.
I’m serious when I say I’m not sure about this – but isn’t what Z/W doing establishing a giant loophole for studios to walkthru, regardless of what collective contract is ever signsd?
If ABC had paid them to write this script would they have been able to retain creative control of it and produce it on their own? How does that work?
I don’t think that these guys are trying to pretend to be some sort of heroes of creativity or anything, I think they just really liked the show they came up with and when it got turned down by networks and they had had their fill of networks telling them what to do on their other shows, they saw that a new alternative had emerged as the internet evolved and decided to use it to make the show they wanted to. What’s wrong with that? I think it’s a pretty good step…though we’ll have to see if the show actually succeeds or not.
On the other hand, I do think it’s a little weird that they would make a deal with NBC when it only just recently premiered on the internet and during this time of crisis in the industry. That does seem like they are maybe using the situation to get more exposure for their show that would not have been possible otherwise.
What role do unions have in new media? The Quarterlife’s deal shows unions to be out of the loop. What is the WGA to do? Can it blacklist people who want to be entrepreneurs, risking their own money?
Well, gee. For some the strike is a hardship. For others? It’s a business opportunity!
Gack. It woulda been nice had they waited for the strike to end. There’s a new generation of showrunners out there who clearly take it a bit more seriously. Their sacrifices are even more laudable in this context.
My so-called Scabs.
Never had much respect for these twerps, and it’s because they’re capable of this sort of crap. Ask any writer who has worked with them!
A struck company is a struck company. Let’s not dance around this one. It’s embarrassing that you’d even try to explain this away, MH.
If Verrone was lame enough to agree to this deal, well… I’ve got another reason to wonder if he knows what he’s doing!
That list just grows longer with each passing day.
The most amusing part of this whole thing is how truly lame Quarterlife is. All of the people posting, the person reporting the story, the Guild… has anyone actually seen this drivel?
I’ll tell you what, you’re not alone. No one’s tuning in online either!
There was screening a few weeks ago on a local campus.
After watching Quarterlife a kid responded, “it was a tv show” or something like it.
The response from the creators, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks!
hahahaha.
Thank the lord the WGA has agreed to go back to the negotiating table!
Wait. You can sell a script you finished before the strike DURING the strike? I can sell my specs to the networks or studios because they were written before the strike? Can somebody explain this to me? Are they saying that all that’s happened since the strike began is that NBC said, “yes, we’ll take it” to an existing proposal? And ZH could say okay? Can someone explain? Seriously, I’m not being snarky. I just don’t get it.
Herskovitz also responds to the issue on the quarterlife message boards…
http://www.quarterlife.com/index.php?module=forum&file=forum_view&forumid=6&assuntoforumid=2261
It’s admirable that Zwick & Herskovitz have negotiated a next-generation deal for writers. HOWEVER, let’s face it–their sale of Quarterlife to NBC hardly shores up the writers’ position during a strike. In fact, it UNDERCUTS the strike because THEY’RE FEEDING SCAB PROGRAMMING to NBC, a struck company. Not to mention, they were producing (and no doubt rewriting) the internet show during a strike to premiere on MySpace, a News Corp company–ANOTHER STRUCK COMPANY. I know that the Internet isn’t covered by the WGA, if Herskovitz wants to split hairs. But now Quarterlife is bona fide TV, as Zwick & Herskovitz had always intended. How bout they step in line with all their other less established–not to mention, less wealthy– showrunners in a show of support. The people we should really applaud are the Shonda Rhimes, Shawn Ryans, and Greg Berlantis of the world–as well as over 100 other top showrunners who won’t cross the picket line. Those are the real heroes, who are making real sacrifices. Shame on Zwick & Herskovitz. Those two WGA members know better.
In response to “writer”
They didn’t sell the scripts to the network. They sold a completed show. As in a written, shot, and edited show. Not a script. People are mad about this, I understand, but a lot of people comment without even reading the posts…at least read what’s going on before posting a response.
Look, the show is a turd. It’ll fail on NBC for sure. Let’s not worry about it too much.
There is a precedent for unions assisting their members to become management. Even the Steelworkers in the mid 90’s helped some of their shuttered locals re-purchase their factories and start production again. United Electrical represents a number of worker-owned businesses. There’s no reason why the WGA can’t assist writers in negotiating their own equity deals, as long as 1) the deals would not undercut WGA minimums (you can’t form a company and then sell your product to the networks for less than what a WGA member would get) and 2) writer/owner-companies would strike when the broader WGA strikes. With these two rules in place, such deals as quarterlife has put together would benefit in creating more independent production firms, diluting the majors power, and shore up pension and health care funding by bringing worker owners under those plans.
I have to say, I don’t buy Herskovitz’s argument here AT ALL.
In any strike, scabs start being offered better deals — things they would never be offered outside of the context of other workers refusing to work and the company being desperate to hire someone, to keep production going, and to break the strike.
That doesn’t mean that the scab offers represent a victory for the workers — precisely because most workers would never be offered that, and all workers are LESS likely to get those kind of good deals when their collective action and solidarity is undermined.
An an analogy, imagine workers in another industry on strike for health care, and suddenly during the strike, scabs start being offered vastly higher wages (as happens in all strikes). Would anyone buy an argument that those wages were a “victory” for workers because workers need higher wages? No, because everyone would understand that this wasn’t some sort of permanent change in the company’s thinking that made them magically willing to pay more — it would be a temporary maneuver to set back the demands of the strike, and there’s no way the higher wages would continue afterward. Result: no higher wages and no health care, and a chance to have won something lost.
So, does anyone believe that if this strike loses, lots of writers are now going to have new avenues for owning their own writing a la H & Z? I don’t. It is impossible for me to see Herskovitz and Zwick’s deal as a step forward for writers’ creative control, because it was made in the context of (and serves the purpose for NBC of) giving most writers less power.
I see Herskovitz’s argument as utterly disingenuous.
Elizabeth is exactly right — a strike is a battle. Right now NBC, and the other media companies, are on the other side of that battle. If the media companies feel pain, they negotiate. Zwick and Herskovitz are alleviating NBC’s pain, therefore, they are UNDERMINING the writers. Z and H are hurting a union to which they belong. They are getting paid while their fellow writers are out there hurting and picketing. Are they proud of that?
Yes, I’m sure the show is horrendous, given their mediocre track record. And yes, maybe these kind of deals are the wave of the future. But this has nothing to do with how they are hurting writers THIS VERY MINUTE. How greedy and pathetic. This is as bad as Ellen. I’d really like to see the union take a stand here.
I really wish people would fully read articles before making their comments.
As states in his comments, they could not legally reject NBC’s offer. Someone please explain to me why they should be attacked for, I don’t know, following the law.
It’s also not that hard for those of us with reading comprehension to understand this wasn’t produced during the strike, it wasn’t written during the strike, and NBC is buying a completed show, not a script.
I have read the comments on the Bedford Falls story with great interest. While the strike remains a very complicated issue, in analyzing what Marshall wrote, and speaking to many industry sources, there is nothing unethical about the sale of Quarterlife (which was done long before the strike). In fact, the scripts were written months ago and most of the episodes before the strike. What am I missing? That those guys helped create a model that many writers and producers can follow for years to come? That they had the courage to fund production of a pilot of out their own pockets(whoever wrote the number of what that cost is an idiot and doesn’t have a clue about production or the real cost of the pilot)? That they have stepped up when all of you are bashing the Studios and networks and done something about getting outside the conventional system? You can not like their work, not like them, not like the internet, not like anything you want, but to talk about this as impropriety or immoral business behavior is ludicrous.
Now, for the important part. Whoever is commenting about their lack of success or quality of their work needs to be institutionalized. By any criteria, commercial or critical, they have almost unprecedented success in a business, where, I venture to guess, most of you have achieved true mediocrity. Just so there is no confusion, Bedford Falls, since it’s inception, has produced a number of feature films and television shows. In the feature arena, their films have been nominated for 35 Academy Awards and won 15. These films have grossed 1.6 Billion dollars. They were also nominated for numerous Humanitas awards, AFI best lists, DGA, WGA, and won the first ever Stanley Kramer award from the PGA for socially conscious filmmaking, and honored by the AFI. What other criteria should be used to evaluate their work (which some of you have called “mediocre”)? I have not even bothered to tally the Golden Globe wins and nominations as it might be redundant.
Their television work has also been nominated for 59 Emmys and won 15, and has spawned the careers of many of the most talented writers, producers and directors working in television today.
Whoever wrote “ask any writer who has worked with them”, I have. In fact, the vast majority would do it again in a heartbeat, as it is rare to even attempt to do the quality of work that they have done and tried to do over the years.
Attack the quality of Quarterlife if you will(though I and many critics disagree), but to attack their character or the quality of the work, is utter nonsense.
TIA — No one is saying the model is a bad idea. They are arguing whether it’s appropriate to sell NBC content during the strike.
And Larry M — The showrunners are also under contract. But they took a courageous stand. I wish that Marshall and Ed would do the same.
Here is what a British business magazine is saying:
Those Hollywood writers who are taking part in the ill-judged writers strike should pay attention to NBC’s latest move. It is planning on airing Quarterlife – a web series aimed at teens that made its debut on MySpace last year – to fill its schedules. Although Quarterlife’s online episodes are just six minutes in length, NBC is going to string them together to make an hour long show. The writers should take note; good stuff is being produced on the web and this kind of content could provide a quick fix that will enable the TV stations to hold out for longer.
… For those working in web entertainment – few of whom stick to the kinds of Spanish practices that plague much of the traditional media – this is a dream. They will be more than happy to fill the void left by the lack of TV programming. The writers need to back down before they do any more irreparable damage to their own livelihoods.
http://www.thebusiness.co.uk/trading-floor/360121/web-content-could-make-hollywood-writers-back-down.thtml
Exactly. Herskovitz and Zwick’s deal serves the objective function of making it easier for NBC to hold out, and therefore, 1) elongating the time that writers and production staff are unpaid, 2) making it more likely that the strike will lose entirely.
When there was a stronger labor movement in this country, it was understood by more people that anything serving those objective functions is the definition of scabbing. That tradition has largely been lost, which is one reason I’m so proud of the writers who are striking, as well as the showrunners, Teamsters and SAG members who have shown truly impressive solidarity.
Regardless of anyone’s intentions, an action has to be judged by whether it’s going to help the studios beat the strike, or help the writers win. This, sadly, does the former.