Category: WGA Strike 2007

New media residuals: real differences

The devil’s always in the details.

When producers offered writers a proposal last week that guaranteed millions more in payments over a three-year deal, it sounded good to the uneducated observer. But now new details of the producers’ proposal and the writer’s recent counter-proposal have become available, and the two sides are not as close as it first seemed.

While some sources claimed the only significant difference was $120 million versus $150 million over the next three years, as we reported earlier, the differences are more detailed and in-depth. In fact, the two sides stand rather far apart.

According to Bloomberg.com, producers wanted to offer writers a $139 flat-fee residual when shows are broadcast on the Web or other new media sources, regardless of the number of viewings or “airings.”

The WGA is eschewing the flat-fee concept and want stepped payments based on a percentage of so-called “applicable minimum” per 100,000 views or “airings.” What does that amount to in real dollars?

Well, an hour-long series episode “applicable minimum” is $632, and it’s $348 for a half-hour show. Writers want only three percent of this applicable minimum, per 100,000 downloads/viewings/whatever.

That would be $18.96 per hour-long show, $10.44 per half-hour show.

For unpopular shows, $18.96 or $10.44 isn’t much; but with popular shows, the money could vary greatly from the flat fee producers were offering.

For example, let’s imagine an episode of the office is offered via iTunes and Verizon Wireless and Sprint TV. Let’s say new media goes wild over this episode and these figures result: 3.25 million iPod owners download it via iTunes. 1,335,000 view it on Verizon, while only 196,000 view it on their Sprint phones.

3.25 is rounded up to 3.3 for 33 times 100,000.

1.33 is rounded down to 1.3 for 13 times 100,000.

0.19 is rounded up to 0.2 for two times 100,000

That’s a show that, therefore, had 33 plus 13 plus two times the applicable minimum fee. The Office is a half-hour show, so the three percent of the applicable minimum in this case is $10.44

48 times $10.44 is $501.12.

Getting a 48x hit episode might be hard to come by, but when it does come along, $501.12 is a whole lot better than a $139 flat fee, wouldn’t you say? That’s what the strike is about, apparently. And at three percent, the writers share grows only as studio/producer profits also grow.

Makes sense to me, WGA!

Leno offers bonuses as 120 are laid off

When striking Tonight Show writers open their mailboxes this week, they’ll find a paycheck; not from the network, but from host Jay Leno himself.

Over 120 Tonight Show staff recently received Christmas bonus checks, but were laid off early for the holiday season, with no guarantee they’d have jobs when the program resumes following the writers’ strike, which could come within the next couple weeks if the WGA accepts a contract proposal they are reviewing from producers, but may stretch into the unforeseen future if they do not.

The 120 layoffs match a similar layoff two weeks ago of staff who depend on the NBC comedy The Office for their weekly pay. The longer the the strike stretches out, the more common such layoffs will become.

The personal bonus from Leno was $100 for each year a staffer has been on staff with the show since he took over; not much money by Hollywood standards, but all of it apparently out of Leno’s personal account, not the network’s.

Writers mulling new deal between Hollywood producers, WGA

Producers decided to get realistic recently, presenting Hollywood screenwriters with a three-year deal proposal that would add approximately $130 million in additional compensation over that period of time, covering the wireless and Internet sales writers consider the crucial point of the strike. The WGA is said to have been seeking a different formula, although the two sides are only apart by an additional $20 million over the same three-year period, according to most online sources.

It doesn’t take a utility cart full of caviar and champaign to close that gap from either end, I would suspect; the WGA is taking the proposal seriously enough to call a halt to negotiations while they consider and pour over the details of the agreement this weekend.

If writers accept the deal, the month-long strike could be over by the second week in December, with writers having plenty of time to start salvaging the 2007-08 TV season. We can only hope.

Could strike end soon?

Producers aren’t exactly inviting writers to a cozy weekend getaway at a Colorado bed and breakfast, but at least the two sides are talking again. The post-Thanksgiving efforts to resume negotiations have several TV writers and stars optimistic for an early resolution to the standoff between the Writers Guild of America and the Hollywood producers.

In fact, 30 Rock writer-producer Tina Fey, star of the NBC hit comedy, was recently seen in a video posted on TVSquad.com in which she says she’s optimistic that a resolution may be as close as a week away. That’s great news to TV viewers already annoyed that some of their shows didn’t get a full November sweeps run. The strike will definitely make TV-land more barren in December than it normally is, and if the strike drags on much longer, there could be no February sweeps to speak of, at least not in the normal, full-schedule sense of the word.

Let’s hope things go short and work out well for the writers; if they can get back in front of their word processors prior for a couple weeks prior to the winter holiday season, February sweeps could still be salvaged, as well as the seasons of most shows currently on strike-induced hiatus.

2007 WGA Strike – A Six Percent Solution

Personally, I think the Hollywood studio and network heads all need to submit to a corporate performance management survey and take their share of the blame for the 2007 WGA Strike, or as it is otherwise known, a big *edited* mess!

Even though networks and studios are making a small but growing killing off Internet downloads, media streaming, cell phone downloads and of course, DVD sales, they are too greedy to admit they need to share some of the fat of this undiscovered country with others. Currently, writers are paid a pittance – four percent – on DVD sales and nothing on all those episodes of The Office you downloaded to your iPod for $1.99 per episode.

I haven’t seen anyone specifically state, in hard figures, the WGA’s demands, but it seems clear to me that the DVD percentage should rise modestly to about six percent – which would represent a 50-percent raise – and that this six percent figure should be extended to cover all forms of electronic media sale, whether they are sold via Sprint cell phone, iPod Touch, Xbox 360, PC download or whatever other way they can dream up to sell episodes of free TV shows for $1.99 a pop.

That’s only $0.12 per episode out of the studio’s pocket, and about $2.99 per typical $49.99 “complete season” DVD collection to be divided among the writers of a typical 22- to 24-episode season.

It’s not much money until you start selling millions of copies or downloads. And studio fat-cats are calling the writers unreasonable?

Unless writers blink, which doesn’t seem likely this time, it seems to me the Six Percent Solution would represent a good middle ground for everyone to settle on. So: can we just skip the six months or so of work stoppage, agree to it now, and get everyone in Hollywood back to work, please? NBC has already fired over 100 employees involved in producing The Office, with no guarantees of being able to reassemble the same crew six months down the line when this finally does shake out.

Real lives are being affected by the work stoppage. I’m not talking about writers here, even; I’m talking about the much-less-well-paid techies who make the entertainment industry tick. Let’s skip the protracted thing and just get on with both sides being reasonable enough to settle where we all know they ought to be anyway.