It's the Money, Stupid
The Writers Guild of America is a middle-class union. Almost half our membership receives no income from Guild-covered employment in any given year. As a result, the median income of Guild members from screen and television writing work is $5,000 per year. That's right: five thousand.
Among the lucky half who actually work, one quarter earns less than $37,700 a year. And even that income is sporadic. You sell a spec screenplay in 2003, you may not sell another one until 2009. More than half of those who have 'safe' staff jobs on television series will not be on television writing staffs five years from now.
So like everyone else, we do what we do to (as the President would say) put food on our families.
One of the things that tides us over during the leaner years is residuals. In other words: when the work we create has a longer tail, a continuing revenue stream, some of that comes back to us. Marc Cherry, who created Desperate Housewives after a long dry spell, would have had to give up writing altogether as a profession had he not been supported by residuals.
But those residuals for things like television syndication are drying up, as syndication, re-runs and the like are replaced by DVDs. You don't watch re-runs of The Sopranos on channel eleven: you watch them on boxed sets. But the residual rate on DVDs is a fraction of a fraction: oh point three percent.
As re-runs and syndication dry up, and a decent formula is replaced by an indecent one, our members stand to lose roughly 80% of their residual income--of what tides them over.
This is why we're asking for four cents more for every DVD. And that's why we're asking that the DVD rate--calculated when cassettes were in their infancy, when DVDs were a gleam in no-one's eyes, when the internet was still ARPANET and closed to commercial interests, when George Michael was in Wham!--not be the determinant of how we're compensated for downloads in this brave new world.
In simplest terms: the costs of manufacturing videocassettes were relatively substantial. The costs of DVDs (stamped rather than spooled) were much less. The costs of internet downloads are smaller still: no box, no disc, no shrinkwrap, no warehouse, no inventory, no shipping, no rackjobbers, no damaged merchandise, no returns. Yet the media giants want to compensate us at the same fraction-of-a-fraction rate.
As you know, the media conglomerates are not charitable. If you believe Fox wants to compensate writers fairly, you probably believe that The No Spin Zone is a no spin zone. And just as in other industries, the gap between what the CEO makes and what the lowest-paid worker makes has multiplied exponentially. The fact that we create the intellectual property, that none of their earnings would be possible absent what we being to the table, is not a matter of large concern to them. It is truly a new Gilded Age, no less so in the IP industry than in real estate or hedge funds.
The conglomerates have put rollbacks on the table, they have put insults on the table, but they have yet to put on the table a complete economic package. We are striking because the conglomerates will not negotiate in good faith otherwise.
The news stories--on radio and television stations owned by the same conglomerates against whom we negotiate--are filled with stories of limo drivers, caterers, florists, waiters, even agents, who might be laid off if the strike is at all protracted. What they don't talk about so much are the writers, thousands of them, who are putting their houses and cars and families and kids and futures in jeopardy to fight for what they believe is right. And what the conglomerate-owned media talk about even less: that no one on this food chain, from high to low, would be eating without the intellectual property writers create.
It's the money, stupid. They have it. They don't want to let go of it. They care so deeply and profoundly about not letting go of even a little of it that they're willing to let thousands upon thousands suffer.
In their moral universe, a fifteen-buck DVD of a movie doesn't have another four cents in it for the people who dreamed up that movie in the first place. And in that same moral universe, a rate set experimentally in the 1980s for videocassettes must be set in stone for the internet era, or else.
Jake Gittes, courtesy Robert Towne, once asked of Noah Cross, "How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?" Noah Cross replied, "The future, Mr. Gitts, the future."
The cost of any one CEO's severance package is, the way these things have been going, in the hundreds of millions. In other words, substantially more than they are offering all screen and television writers over the next three years.
Read more thoughts about the strike on Huffington Post's writers' strike opinion page
Follow Howard A. Rodman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ivanjohnson
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"Marc Cherry, who created Desperate Housewives after a long dry spell, would have had to give up writing altogether as a profession had he not been supported by residuals."
Given the referenced creation is moronic tripe designed to appeal to the lowest possible intellect (as is 98% of the stuff coming out of Hollywood), too bad he didn't give up writing.
It should really say something to those folks in the corner offices when their studios shut down - namely, that their very existences rest on the creativity of the few. During this strike, I'd really like to see some corporate bigwigs get in a room and attempt to write something funny. That would be a sorry time in television, and I think it would prove this point once again - that writers are professionals and should be paid as such.
Not only is this strike long overdue in an industry that feeds on the mental energies of so many unsung writers, it is representative of what needs to happen across the country to combat the exorbitantly wealthy's obsession with getting richer on the backs of others.
The bottom line seems to drive many executives into a frenzied arrogance over what they deem must belong to them because they sit at the top of the heap. Just because there are those willing to dive into their souls on a daily basis and provide for us the text that makes us laugh, cry, gasp and glow does not mean that their craft is their reward. They've got to eat and pay the bills, too, just like everybody else. They are our storytellers. Let's give them a happy ending.
Howard, you have made sense of this situation and should send an expanded version of this blog to the major newspapers. See if they have the you-know-what's to print it. After all, the newspapers seem to have a lot of...what are they called? That's it! "WRITERS" on staff. Perhaps some of them or many of them will sympathize.
Limo drivers and florists are still driving limos and delivering flowers. Where does that fit in with writers demanding their fair share. (hey, I are a poe-itt!)
Hollywood should wake up to the fact that without writers, there would be no Hollywood. It'd just be another dusty, smoggy town that rattles once in a while and has good weather 300 days a year. (Hey, let's make a movie!...er..how do we do THAT without writers? Even the silents had writers....the STORY is king/queen, is it not?)
Time for the CEOs to look at the, dare I say it...BIG PICTURE! Or ANY picture, for that matter. And they should ask themselves if all those glam "stars" were to sit in chairs, in front of an audience, and just SIT there, would that audience shell out $9.00 for a ticket, $8.00 for 5 cents worth of popcorn with yellow glop on it, and $20 to pay the babysitter to just watch those well-coifed folks JUST SIT THERE?
I don't think so.
C'mon, Hollywood bigshots! How did ya get to be so big in the first place? Pay writers what they are worth.
Remember:
In the beginning was THE WORD.
WHEN DID WE IN AMERICA DECIDE THAT THE ECONOMY SHOULD BE FAIR AND EQUITABLE FOR THE WORKER......
Was it during the time we chased or killed the Native Americans off their land so white Europeans could control it??
Was it during the time we enslaved Africans and brought them here to do our work for NOTHING??
Was it during the time we used children for slave labor in the factories??
Was it during the time that wealthy power brokers sent in goons and thugs to hurt, harm and kill union organizers??
Was it during the time we pay females 30%, 50%, 70% of what a male makes for the same work??...oh, you mean TODAY.....?
Was it during the time that CEO's receive 50X, 100X, 200X, 500X what the worker receives??
When was that time???
NOW seems like a GOOD TIME for a democratic society.....
Mr. Rodman, the problem with the United States is that the Slaves identify with the Masters.
How do you correct a problem when people are conditioned to take umbrage of at individuals who are standing up for their rights ... it's truly a pathetic case of "Crab Mentality".
I hope the Writers get a fair shake this time, but people just don't get it.
You can take the "have you ever seen an underpaid CEO?" comment and develop it further.
Can you name one actor, writer, producer, director or studio CEO that actually took LESS money in a deal? George Clooney took $2 for directing and acting in "Good Night and Good Luck" to insure that it would be made. Luckily for him, he has the clout to do that. And then to make money on the back end. So the reality is he would make money off this. I can't think of any other person that would do that.
One problem the WGA will have in this strike is how to spin this (us vs. the evil and greedy studios). What are some common things you hear in the Hollywood system? It's a business. That's just the way things are done here. So why should we change? If I were the WGA President I'd do everything I could to insure that there's a clause in this new contract to gurantee that quality original ideas would be pitched and developed. Make it a quota per year if necssary. Can you legally do that? But if big name actors can have their posse come and be with them on the set, who's to blame for that? The studio. Nobody's forcing them to sign these actors and others. Of course if you say no to Tom Cruise, naturally he'll use every bit of his money and clout and go elsewhere.
The only way it'll change is if you either take the huge profit out of it. Or, if you level the playing field between the studios and unions. You're dreaming if you seriously think that unions will disappear or give up any of their power. So, who needs the reality shows and reruns? Again, it comes down to money and power. And the top dogs will fight you to the death before they give an inch. If the studios actually cared about original content they would have stopped greenlighting all the remakes long ago. As long as they make money off it, screw the audience.
Stated by Howard Rodman:
"I say this not ferociously but as a genuine question: if what the media conglomerates offer would cause grievous economic harm to our membership, and if the only way of getting them to negotiate seriously is a strike, and if we're not to use the strike as a tool here--
What should we do?"
You do what you need to do to protect EVERY writer out there and STAND by your decision. Did you know that those "media conglomerates" like to "hide" behind fake usernames and "leak" the stories the writers have written?
I say you USE the internet to educate just as you would use those picket signs to express your passionate POV and TEACH the viewer and aspiring writers like myself that what you do, isn't just "hopllywood glitz and glamour", its a business that will use their mothers and fathers and sleep with their brothers and sisters if you DO NOT PROTECT yourself.
Reality shows, cheap and thoughtless IMHO, kill the imaginative dream. Let the networks find out 500 Billion + dollars later that as cheap as they are, they are NOT ratings winners. Audience is fickle and still LOVES the rush of excitement and sharp witty dialogue that leaves an impression to last a lifetime. It bonds and grows with each individual just as their first bike or big wheel.
"Afternoon Everybody!" "Norm!" "Norman." "How's it hanging Norm?" "Well, its a dog eat dog world Sammy and I am wearing milkbone underwear."
"Cheers" from the early eighties second season i think, NOW ON DVD. Writers like the late David Angell, Heide Perlman, Glen and Les Charles, and so on....where are their royalties for giving the audience that?"
I get the point, but the reason why the Suits do not like Jeffrey, Les, and others, is because they do NOT see the audience or the work: they see the dollar signs...until you take that out of their viewpoint, nothing changes. A writer feels the words and hopes the audience embraces them. Trust me, they do.
JMVHO
Bravo Professor! Thank you for telling the truth!
Unlike yourself but like many others, I have four things registered with the guild currently, and its been sitting there for years just to be protected while I still try to find a agent. Unless you have some representation to protect YOU the writer, Hollywood will steal you blind and they do not care. I have always wanted to write ever since I was a kid, and now with so many writing jobs that are going to be availiable for the scab writers {such as ABC keeping their daytime shows on the air} its not worth it because it just taints everything. I respect what the Guild is doing and I hope it brings the message home that at any level, you can be taken advantage of:
Middle class is nearly non existent and this is another prime example of it.
Best wishes and Good Luck!
I've only been lightly following this story, but I've known from the beginning that I would support your union, like I would expect your union to support mine. I hope that this doesn't end up having a bad result, like I've heard others say, ones who claim that this will cost you and yours more than you'll get out of it...
Fascinating. Thank you, Prof. Rodman, for pulling back the curtain behind your industry. I really feel for you writers, because indeed you deserve more money and recognition for your splendid work. I have been continually amazed by how SUPERB the quality of good TV and films have become in the last 20 years. And you're right---people don't watch reruns of shows as much as buy DVDs now. I don't even watch regular TV any more. I watch almost everything through the Internet. You writers deserve a bigger chunk of that Internet and DVD money too.
I sympathize with the writers, but you demolished your own credibility by trying factor in the income of the unemployed. No-one has job/income security anymore. Like any other profession, some writers, no doubt, are underpaid, and some clearly chose the wrong line of work.
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