Greed Is Getting Me Down....And So Are The Endless Repeats On TV
by Nicole
Last night marked another milestone in the two-month long Writers' Guild strike as the late night talk shows inevitably went back on air. Though Leno made a good case in his monologue for returning without writers (for the job security of his non-writing staff), and Letterman didn't have to since his production company came to an interim agreement with The Guild, my bond with my TV has been forever weakened over these past few weeks. This is no bad thing for me, but doesn't bode well for the TV industry, since I'm sure I'm not the only one finding better things to do with my time.
Driven away from TV by the endless repeats, I'm finally moving on from this bad relationship that's already lasted a little too long. Over the holidays I invested in a Netflix subscription, so I can watch works of art rather than a stream of commercial fodder. I plan to pay for my new subscription by reducing the channels of repeat drivel that get beamed into my living room. I've also been reading more books, lots of them, and playing board games with my husband, who has logged in enough hours to finally beat me (big time, which is worrying). And I've been cooking dinner and enjoying the company of my friends, rather than being sucked back into the void that was TV.
Due to the sporadic and seasonal nature of their work, residuals are the only way the majority of writers can make ends meet. And what they're asking for is far less than they were already promised by the producers 20 years ago. Back then, they agreed to reduce their 2.5% residual rate by 80% to help the fledgling home video market take off, with the understanding that once it did, their rate would be restored. Two decades later, with the supposedly temporary VHS rate now being applied to DVDs, the writers have given up waiting for the producers to make good on their promise. Even worse, the writers have been paid nothing at all for streaming internet video, which it's estimated will earn the studios $4.6 billion in ad revenue over the next three years. Ultimately, streaming internet video is how virtually all TV will be consumed. The producers know this of course, and the end game for them is to hold out on this point so they can ultimately do away with writer residuals altogether. (Imagine asking a producer to give up his back end fees!)
To quote one of the many strike blogs, "In 2006 the WGA writers received $56.6 million in DVD and VHS residuals. The same year, Tom Freston received a $60 million severance package when he resigned as chief of Viacom. That means that a single individual was paid $3.4 million more for leaving his job than 10,000 writers earned for the sale of their work." That's the staggering level of greed at play here as we enter 2008 no closer to a resolution to the strike.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has a fun widget on their website listing the hundreds of millions the strike is costing the industry in real time. Some estimates put the ultimate cost to the LA area of the strike at a staggering $2.5 billion. So at this point the greed of the producers is clearly beyond reason, especially since the plethora of repeats on TV serves as proof that without writers they have nothing to produce. Hollywood's producers have already lost far more than they'd ever have to pay out in residuals in the foreseeable future, their greed is clearly impairing their capacity for common sense.
But why should you feel sorry for a bunch of elite Hollywood writers you may ask? Well there's currently a climate of rampant corporate greed that is adversely affecting us all that must be curtailed. To give you an example, this is not just about writers in Hollywood but impoverished tomato farmers in Florida too. Last month hundreds of migrant agricultural workers took to the streets of Miami protesting at wage cuts of up to 40%. Many of the tomatoes they grew were for Burger King, which is owned by a consortium of cooperate investors lead by Goldman Sachs, who as the farmers were pounding the streets, were busy divvying up end of year bonuses that totaled somewhere between $17 and $22 billion. This is the climate of obscene corporate greed that should concern us all.
Fortunately for the writers they have a stronger voice than the migrant farmworkers in Florida, and more financial wherewithal to take a long term stand against such out of control corporations. But their struggle is essentially the same, and by supporting the writers in Hollywood, you're talking a stand against this climate of greed gone wild.
We all need to fight to protect the working rights and benefits we may take for granted, but that were fought and sacrificed for by our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. These rights and benefits have never been in more peril, with corporations being aided and abetted by a government that's enacting legislation on almost a daily basis that chips away at the sanctity of our pensions and health funds.
This strike is not about the rights of a privileged few. First of all, they're not so privileged (really - see previous post). Secondly, this is about the rights of all workers, since when one group of workers' rights gets weakened, the standing of all workers' rights is diminished, while the tower of corporate greed stands that bit taller. So, to misquote that great anti-establishment figure Timothy Leary, support your fellow workers by turning off, tuning out, and dropping in to the library or your friend's house, it just might improve everyone's life.
