Writer's Guild Going on Strike

The Writers Guild is only for writers and it strikes about every 10 years. IATSE has never had a strike in its 128 year history. It seems to be a distinct disadvantage not to use the most powerful tool unions have. To clarify, in the last negotiations, the members voted to strike by the smallest of margins (.6%) but the delegates overwhelmingly approved the new contract (74%). Certainly frustrating for the Locals that put in the long hours.
 
DLD said:
OMG, the US spends money on defense! ... How disadvantageous for Vladimir Putin.

PS. I am not a Marxist. I've read the same arguments in Pravda back in the 1970's. Glad Mikhail Suslov still have the fellow travelers in the US.
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I don't think y'all realize how badly we're being ripped off by defense contractors. Our money is not being well spent. We're giving them a blank check. There are so many examples where we pay a 4000% markup for goods that are commercially available but the government is restricted to purchasing from special military suppliers. Here's a recent, slightly different issue I just read about concerning $50k trash cans.

Until 2010, Boeing charged an average of $300 for a trash container used in the E-3 Sentry, a surveillance and radar plane based on the 707 civilian airliner. When the 707 fell out of use in the United States, the trash can was no longer a “commercial” item, meaning that Boeing was not obligated to keep its price at previous levels, according to a weapons industry source who spoke to RS.

In 2020, the Pentagon paid Boeing over $200,000 for four of the trash cans, translating to roughly $51,606 per unit. In a 2021 contract, the company charged $36,640 each for 11 trash containers, resulting in a total cost of more than $400,000. The apparent overcharge cost taxpayers an extra $600,000
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https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/06/20/the-pentagons-52000-trash-can/
 
ahalpert said:
I don't think y'all realize how badly we're being ripped off by defense contractors....
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I worked at an accounting department for a major US military defense subcontractor. So, I had to know hundreds of the various items.

I was still in college then. Summer help..
 
Paul F said:
The Directors Guild has ratified a new contract that includes streaming residuals. This could be the framework for the Writers Guild. Let's hope for a quick and satisfactory resolution. https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/dga-ratification-vote-amptp-1235653169/
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It's a bit different but there's overlap on some of the issues the WGA care most about. I am DGA and Local 600.

The new DGA contract talks about streaming residuals but there's no actual mechanism or specifics about HOW they will be calculated.

They also have (in my view) a good stance on AI.

These issues are only about half of what the writers care about though. The biggest issues for writers is SPANS and STAFFING. Writers get paid per episode. Often they get made producers so that they can do a re-write and they then don't have to pay the writer for another draft which suits TV production very much. This is why you see so many producers on a show. 90% of them are just writers that have written an episode and paying them a flat producer fee is cheaper than paying them for re-writes as writers.

But...

With there no longer being 22 episode seasons as much and seasons being 6 or 8 episodes, there's less money for writers because duh, there's less episodes.

"Span protection limits the period of time covered by a writer-producer’s episodic fee to 2.4 weeks of work. If a writer-producer works longer than 2.4 weeks, multiplied by the number of episodes (e.g., 24 weeks for a 10-episode order), additional compensation is due."


A staff writer working in streaming in 2021-22 worked an average of 20 weeks a year. With staff writers working on broadcast drama and cable it's 29 weeks a year. Most staff writers work for the WGA / MBA minimum. In other words, the lowest rate possible as per the contract.

The rates are buried in the now defunct MBA https://www.wga.org/uploadedfiles/contracts/mba20.pdf

A staff writer is the first on the rung where you're being paid as a writer. Before you're a staff writer you're likely an intern or assistant getting paid minimum wage.

So they want some guarantees for lower episode counts on some shows (the span) and they want some other (in my view silly) things to do with keeping the writer employed and paid all through post on their given episode. I would have thought that's producing but what do I know.
 
Doug Bee said:
The new DGA contract talks about streaming residuals but there's no actual mechanism or specifics about HOW they will be calculated.
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Oh, that's disappointing. I'm sorry to hear that.

Doug Bee said:
With there no longer being 22 episode seasons as much and seasons being 6 or 8 episodes, there's less money for writers because duh, there's less episodes.


A staff writer working in streaming in 2021-22 worked an average of 20 weeks a year. With staff writers working on broadcast drama and cable it's 29 weeks a year. Most staff writers work for the WGA / MBA minimum. In other words, the lowest rate possible as per the contract.
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At $10k per 30 minute show, 8 episodes won't pay the mortgage. I can see the problem.
 
Paul I’m guessing you’re being facetious.

They get paid for one episode because most shows have a different writer for each episode.

So more like 10k for 10-12 weeks work.

Most are expected to be around for the writers room at the beginning and the whole run of the show.
 
No, I was trying to be straight. You mentioned 6-8 episodes and per their contract, the minimum is $10k for a 30 minute show. That's pretty slim pickings. So I've got it wrong on how it works. It's worse than I thought. I'm amazed at writer's talents and I don't understand how they are so undervalued.
 
Ahh no worries.

they do make up for it by getting producing fees as I mentioned.

and the few that rise to show runner can do very well.
 
Paul F said:
No, I was trying to be straight. You mentioned 6-8 episodes and per their contract, the minimum is $10k for a 30 minute show. That's pretty slim pickings. So I've got it wrong on how it works. It's worse than I thought. I'm amazed at writer's talents and I don't understand how they are so undervalued.
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I also feel like writers are probably being underutilized for budgetary reasons. It's pretty widely accepted that production values in TV have skyrocketed since the 90s and the 70s. (Or at least, TV is more "cinematic.") But I don't feel like the quality of the writing has. In general, I'd say it might be worse. And I would chalk that up to the amount of time they get to spend refining a script. Just a guess on my part.
 
I happened to look at TV ratings today and it happens to be the last day that Showbuzz daily is posting them. Not that it is a surprise, but no one is watching broadcast or cable. The ratings are abysmal. The highest rated show on broadcast and cable, excluding Telemundo and Univisino was less than 1%. The top shows are in the 0.3% rating. That is 0.3% of the TVs are watching the show. I'm surprised that cable and TV are even in existence with those numbers.

The point is there is no money in anything being shown on cable or TV, so the writers need to go elsewhere because no one is going to pay for writers because no one is watching.
 
Dime-a-dozen now...it's a new world.

Too many things to be entertained by...like Zuckerberg and Musk in a cage match which is predicted to draw over 1 billion dollars (needless to say, the highest draw in history if it happens).
 
Yea, when someone with a gopro puts out a show a week with no crew, no writers, no producers, no advertisers, zero overhead and is bringing in several million views, and making a killing, it's a new world. That reminds me, I've got to post my All Old People All The Time video for this week. This week, the panel talks about how to talk without having your dentures fall out. Hilarity ensues.
 
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Paul F said:
I happened to look at TV ratings today and it happens to be the last day that Showbuzz daily is posting them. Not that it is a surprise, but no one is watching broadcast or cable. The ratings are abysmal. The highest rated show on broadcast and cable, excluding Telemundo and Univisino was less than 1%. The top shows are in the 0.3% rating. That is 0.3% of the TVs are watching the show. I'm surprised that cable and TV are even in existence with those numbers.

The point is there is no money in anything being shown on cable or TV, so the writers need to go elsewhere because no one is going to pay for writers because no one is watching.
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does that indicate that most TVs are not on? or is this a percentage of what is being watched on the TVs that are on?

it's hard for me to find numbers to equate youtube ratings to TV. It looks like Americans probably watch about 200 billion minutes of YouTube each month. And it's about 9 billion minutes per month for the top 10 streaming shows. I have no idea how many streaming shows across how many platforms that equates to. It's also worth noting that people can watch clips of shows on YouTube, so there's some overlap there.

It's also worth noting that many youtubers have a proper production budget for camera crews and editors and the whole nine yards, probably including some writers. It's just not scripted dramas for the most part.
 
Paul F said:
Yea, when someone with a gopro puts out a show a week with no crew, no writers, no producers, no advertisers, zero overhead and is bringing in several million views, and making a killing, it's a new world. That reminds me, I've got to post my All Old People All The Time video for this week. This week, the panel talks about how to talk without having your dentures fall out. Hilarity ensues.
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I'm not sure this is accurate. My 3-year old loves Blippi, for example. But Blippi is basically making sesame street-type stuff as a largely solo performer. (Actually, he's a bit like Pee Wee Herman.) But it's clear that he has a camera crew and that the editing costs. Now he stars in some animations. And he's hired a co-star ("Meekah") who features in her own videos. He's basically built a production company. Sure, the overhead is waaaaay less than Sesame Street, but it ain't a guy with a gopro.

EDIT: actually, big news! I just looked up Blippi to share the link here, and the main actor has just been REPLACED altogether by a new hire. The original Blippi (Stevin John) must be sipping margaritas on a beach in Wyoming. (Anybody remember that thread?)

https://www.youtube.com/user/blippivideos
 
Those views are pretty good and obviously better than many on YT but for comparison...this is the top dog on YouTube right now and probably will never be dethroned.

I don't watch him, but he averages 150-175 million views per some videos within a month/months (unprecedented, and pretty much insane).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48h57PspBec
 
ahalpert said:
does that indicate that most TVs are not on? or is this a percentage of what is being watched on the TVs that are on?
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'Ratings' is the percentage of TVs watching a show regardless of whether the TV is on or not (110 million households). So a 1% share is about 1.1 million TVs.

The other stat they always tracked was 'share' which is the percent of TVs that are on, what percent is watching the show.
 
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