Writers hit the picket lines
NEW YORK (CNN) — Dozens of writers picketed Monday morning outside NBC studios at Rockefeller Plaza, carrying signs and yelling, on the first day of the Writers Guild of America’s strike against studios and production companies.
What do we want? a man called to the strikers.
Contracts! the group answered.
When do we want it?
Now!
The writers’ union says the strike, which began at 12:01 a.m. PT (3:01 a.m. ET), is necessary to protect their members’ future incomes as the shows they write are increasingly distributed over new media, primarily through Internet downloading. A last-day effort to reach a new work agreement collapsed Sunday night despite the writers conceding a demand for a doubling of how much they are paid for DVD sales. This had been considered the major stumbling block to a deal.
The DVD situation has always been a catastrophe, Warren Leight, the executive producer of NBC’s Law and Order: Criminal Intent, said Monday. But, he stressed, At the moment, we have no piece of the Internet at all. Watch what’s at stake
While studios have been hoarding scripts for months in anticipation of a strike, some television shows that are more topical — particularly late-night TV talk shows — are expected to immediately go to re-runs.
It’s affecting us in the most visible way possible, John Oliver, a writer and correspondent for The Daily Show, told CNN on Monday as he stood amid the pickets, who carried signs that read On Strike and Pencils Down. The group had also brought a large inflatable rat, which they had tethered to metal railings set up along the street.
We’re off the air, Oliver said. We’d much rather work than stand in the cold. Writers are people who fear the sunlight, he added, smiling.
However, he said, the writers need new contracts that incorporate new media’s impact.
Clearly, revenue is being created from new media, he said. But we are not receiving any of it.
The president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) criticized the WGA negotiators for walking out of the talks Sunday night.
When we asked if they would ’stop the clock’ for the purpose of delaying the strike to allow negotiations to continue, they refused, said AMPTP President Nick Counter.
The union’s statement early Monday morning said that while it chose to withdraw its DVD proposal — which they say would have doubled writers’ residuals — the studios and production companies were still insisting on a framework concerning Internet distribution that makes a mockery of any residual, the statement said.
The WGA said producers want to deny the union future jurisdiction over scripts written for most new media and have offered no economic proposal for the parts of new media writing the guild wants covered.
Other rules demanded by producers would give writers no residuals when a movie is streamed online or during a window when online consumers have free reuse of downloads, the WGA said.
Counter placed the blamed for the failed talks on the negotiators for the writers.
We made an attempt at meeting them in a number of their key areas, including Internet streaming and jurisdiction in new media, Counter said.
Ultimately, the guild was unwilling to compromise on most of their major demands.
While working writers are generally paid well, they depend on residuals to get them through often-frequent times of unemployment.
And, as video iPods and Internet downloads increasingly supplant traditional television and movie theaters, writers confront a changing industry. Their last contract was negotiated in 1988, years before DVD sales displaced VHS distribution.
Reality television has been another wake-up call for writers, since most do not require scripts. American Idol and other hit shows should not be affected by a prolonged strike.
AMPTP said that 67 percent — 64 of 96 — television series this season are scripted, down from 81 percent just two seasons ago. Late-night television hosts like David Letterman, Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel, as well as programs like The Daily Show will likely feel the pinch of the strike first. Because of their topical nature, networks do not typically shoot these shows in advance.
Daytime soaps normally stockpile about 30 days in advance and most prime-time shows would likely make it through the end of the year without any major impact on programming.
A spokeswoman for the guild, Sherry Goldman, told CNN on Monday that the strike would not affect news divisions.
But networks would have to resort to reruns, news programs and reality shows to fill the schedule in 2008 if a strike were to drag on.
If the strike lingers, the WGA faces the danger of writers opting out of full membership for financial core status, which would allow them to return to work. They would lose their voting privileges, but retain all benefits.
The last WGA strike 20 years ago lasted five and a half months. It cost the entertainment industry an estimated $500 million.
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