Writers' strike: It's still young

• PODCAST: David Rips on streaming TV shows
• EXTRA: Interview with Craft and Fain about "Women's Murder Club" and the strike's effect

As week two of the Writers Guild of America strike came to a close, spirits remained high among TV and film writers on picket lines in Hollywood and New York, even as they acknowledged that their fight for Internet payments would likely drag into 2008.

With the holiday season approaching and no new talks planned between writers and producers, the work stoppage is guaranteed to last at least two months, barring an unexpected development in talks between the WGA and the studios, which are represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).

A score of shows have already gone dark with more to follow, putting crews on the unemployment line along with the actors and writers. In the worst-case scenario, the strike wipes out the 2007-08 season, and is joined by the Screen Actors Guild, whose contract with the big studios expires in June.

If this sobering realization has dampened spirits out on the picket lines, the writers aren't showing it.

“I think everyone feels we have to be doing this,” said Sarah Fain, one half of the Kansas City-bred writing team behind the ABC series “Women's Murder Club.” “We're optimistic we can get the AMPTP back to the table and hopefully get a fair deal.”

Her writing partner on the show, Elizabeth Craft, volunteered for one of the early-bird pickets that started this week. By arriving at 6 a.m., the writers hope to effectively cut off supplies to the studios, at least those delivered by Teamsters, who are honoring the pickets.

“We got a lot of Teamsters honking and wearing (supportive) T shirts,” said Craft, who also noted that “it's a lot cooler at 6 a.m.”

Spokesmen for AMPTP were eerily silent this week, as they were most of last week. Patrick Goldstein, who writes the “Big Picture” column for the Los Angeles Times, reported Wednesday that he couldn't get any studio head to speak on the record.

Meanwhile, every writer with a blog was getting the message out and underscoring the determination of the 12,000-member WGA.

“There's a much greater sense of solidarity in this strike,” said Ken Levine, the veteran comedy writer whose credits include “M*A*S*H” and “Cheers” and whose blog is one of the go-to sites for anyone wanting a little color from the front lines. Levine, a veteran of several writers' strikes, compared the current situation to the one in 1988, when a fractious writers' guild slogged through a painful five-month work stoppage that lacked a happy ending.

“In the '88 strike the film people were saying, 'Why should we strike for TV residuals?' and the TV people were saying, 'Why should we be striking for features?'” said Levine. “This time it's something that both sides agree is important.”

That's because movie and television writers alike are convinced that the Internet is fast becoming the way people entertain themselves. The guild is asking for a residual of 2.5 percent on the profits of new media distribution. Currently they're paid nothing on downloads, except those that are paid for, such as iTunes purchases. And those residuals are based on what WGA president Patric Verrone has referred to as “the hated DVD formula,” a fat 0.3 percent.

WGA leadership has been savvy with the news media, organizing Friday rallies where strikers picket en masse. The first week's mass rally outside the Fox studios attracted 4,000 writers and seemingly as many news trucks. This week's mass rally, held at NBC's Burbank studios, featured a speech by Sen. John Edwards, who has sided with the WGA.

The Internet may not be a great way for the writers to get paid, but it's proving to be a lifeline as they work the picket lines, offering 24/7 updates and their own network to broadcast their message to the public. Hardly a day passes when a fresh YouTube video concocted by a Writers Guild member doesn't go viral. On Monday, it was a clip reel of recent interviews with the big studio chieftains bragging about how much Internet revenue they were making.

On Tuesday, the writers for “The Daily Show” taped a clever fake newscast from the streets of New York, complete with a desk, anchor, taped bits and “graphics” (e.g., a Sharpied sign that read, “Winter of Our Dissed Content”). They even mocked their own boss, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone, who claimed to be making nothing from the Internet while simultaneously suing YouTube for $1 billion worth of copyright violations.

The Internet seems to be helping keep the writers not only on message but in line. On Wednesday Variety broke the news that several daytime soap opera writers were planning to cross the picket lines. Within hours a rival publication, Broadcasting & Cable, posted an update on its Web site: The writers in question had changed their minds. Veteran scribes agreed such a rapid sequence of events could never have happened in 1988.

The AMPTP has argued (on its Website) that paying writers now for Internet streamed TV shows and movies would “inhibit our ability to experiment, innovate, analyze and adapt to the transformative changes confronting us.”

One person who has actually seen how Internet streaming works and how much money it makes is David Rips. He heads up the media and entertainment practice for Deloitte Consulting, one of the big players in the infamous Hollywood accounting system that calculates TV and movie residuals. Rips said he has no fox in this hunt; whatever the payment scheme, his company will have work to do. But he says the writers are making a mistake going out on strike because digital distribution isn't making any money and won't for some time.

“People think it's free to distribute on the Internet. It's not. It costs a ton of money to set up,” Rips said. “It's going to take many years for this to turn into something that consumers understand and accept.” He thinks the union should negotiate incremental raises in payments for the Internet so as not to hinder the growth of the system.

The problem with that argument, Ken Levine said, “is that they did that before, in '86, when the producers said, 'Well,.we don't know about this VHS format. We need time to study it.' But” -- he laughed here -- “they never came back and said, 'OK, we studied it, this is going to be a gold mine.' They never did it. So when they say they need time to study it, for the writers it's, 'Fool me once...'”

Even writers with a lot to lose believe they stand to lose even more if they buckle under on Internet payments this time. Liz Craft and Sarah Fain, the two former Pembroke Hill classmates, just got promoted to showrunners with “Women's Murder Club,” which began airing this fall on ABC. The show's 10th episode, which they wrote together, was being produced inside the gates of Twentieth Television while they walked the lines outside. When that episode is done, production will shut down altogether, putting their crew out of work as well.

“So many people, even the flower shop owners, all sorts of people get hurt by the strike,” said Craft. “But this issue is so important and we're at such a…”

“Watershed moment,” Fain said, finishing her partner's sentence.

One estimate has pegged the losses to the TV studios of the strike at $500 million per week. More troubling is the permanent damage that a strike could have on the business, as viewers grow weary of reruns and seek other entertainment options.

If the strike isn't resolved by Christmas, the networks' cupboards will be bare come the February ratings period, save for unscripted shows like "American Idol" and "Dancing with the Stars." If spring arrives and there's no deal, it's unlikely the two sides could reach one in time to save the season.

“This shouldn't be a divisive issue,” said Fain. “We're not asking for anything crazy. I know ABC.com had 100 million Internet downloads last year. If they continue to make money off our work, we should continue to make money.”

Craft, who's married to a striking writer, added, “Many writers are middle class and the residuals they get are very important. Months can pass between jobs, and these residuals pay for their kids' college tuition, mortgage payments, medical bills … they keep them afloat in the tough times.”

By most indications, the tough times in Hollywood have just begun.

Comments

[skippy]

skippy walks the picket line at nbc and sees the top of john edwards head.

[Paige Owen]

I hope that the writers get what they want and soon because honestly i work, i go to school and i deal with life and the one release i have all week is watching women's murder club which i absolutely love. I understand why they are striking but God why punish those who didnt have a hand in it. People got into the entertainment business to entertain people...how is this entertaining.

[Darko]

I hope it takes as long as it has to. Hollywood needs to appreciate its workers. And skippy I'm sorry you can't watch your show. Instead, why don't you read a book--or watch porn.

[Kim]

The impact that this strike is having on our family, reaches far beyond Southern California.
We just had a costly relocation from Michigan in October to support our young daughter in her acting Career. She had just gotten a contract for this season on a TV show( not naming names)
Now we are looking at the very real possibility of having to go back home just one month here due to the writers strike.
By the time we transition back, we may have lost our home in Michigan.

[Aaron]

That last poster brings up a point that I think is worth bearing in mind here. Unlike blue-collar industries, showbiz is a pretty high risk-reward line of work. And in a sense, what this strike is about is making sure that people who take the risks - writers, talent, crew, all of whom work from job to job - continue to be rewarded for their success.

What's interesting is I think 20 years ago the public might not be as sympathetic, but it's because we now live in an entertainment economy (pace Michael Wolf) that we are more likely to be sympathetic toward writers who write the movies and TV shows we so voraciously consume.

Aaron,
I think most people agree that the writers deserve more money for their work.
This is why I don't understand why the WGA began the strike with - what seems to be an organized lie - that writers don't receive *anything* from the internet.

[Carol]

Wow this is getting a lot of publicity. To be honest, I'm glad for the strike. Perhaps as more shows go dark more people will pull themselves off the couches and move out into the world. Perhaps we will cast off the shackles of Television now that neither side wants to budge. Children will once again play outside and couples will turn off those cheesy sitcoms and rediscover how to make a marraige work. Maybe the Galatica geeks will rediscover the sun and like blossoming seeds we will pull ourselves from the dirt and grow... Perhaps...

Wow.

[Aaron]

ATTENTION ANONYMOUS AMPTP COMMENTERS.

I can only assume that the persons posting comments calling the WGA "liars," on my blog and elsewhere, because of the guild's stance on Internet revenues is a paid mouthpiece for the AMPTP. For one thing, they usually don't identify what they do for a living or why they even care.

So to these people, I'd just like to point out that it's not a "lie" to say that writers are not receiving revenue from the Internet when, in every instance, the writer invariably amplifies her/his point with an example from NBC.com, or ABC.com (as Sarah Fain does in the story above), or CBS.com or Fox.com. These sites, as we all know, stream dozens of prime time shows, full episodes, for free, including ads that can't be skipped.

Free dot-com streaming is the dominant way that people receive content online, not by paying iTunes $2 for an episode. To most people reading this, I am stating the obvious.

And that's why saying that the WGA is "lying" about Internet revenues is sort of like saying that it's a "lie" to declare that no one's going to vote for Dennis Kucinich.

Besides, iTunes revenues are paid according to the home video rate of 0.3 percent that the WGA despises almost as much as the Internet streaming rate of 0.0 percent. But that would be the AMPTP's other lame argument of the day (that the WGA is "demanding a 700 percent increase in the home video rate!") and I've only got so many hours in a day here...

but has anyone considered the cost of this strike?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=540fPtB0-Uc

[Aaron]

From the story, which it'd warm my heart if you'd actually read before posting:

"One estimate has pegged the losses to the TV studios of the strike at $500 million per week"

[Ed Dravecky III]

The "cost" comment was a reference to the satirical YouTube video he linked to. I'm not sure that the greenhouse gases emitted by picketing writers are the actual primary cause of global climate change nor is every letter you send in support of the writers a "dagger in the heart of Mother Earth." Funny stuff, as long as people realize that the video by C.R.A.P. (yes, really) is a satire.

(Sorry! I'm so easily annoyed these days...--AB)