Oh dear. Some of the most beloved live US TV shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and not-so-loved shows like The Tonight Show with Jay Leno may be reduced to mere reruns in the near future. Apparently there’s a bit of a dispute between the show writers and TV studios in Tinsel Town over extra payments for the use of content on DVDs and digital media. The writers’ contracts expired yesterday, and they’ll be meeting with the studios tonight to decide whether or not they’ll keep working. If the TV writer do decide to pout for a bit about how much they’re not getting paid, we’ll all have to suffer through reruns of Jay Leno’s *brilliant* monologues.
J Nicholas Counter, the president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (which is far too long of a title, if you ask me), realizes how important and dramatic this issue is and explains, “The magnitude of that proposal alone is blocking us from making any further progress. We cannot move further as long as that issue remains on the table. In short, the DVD issue is a complete roadblock to any further progress.” Huh. In London, we have postal strikes. In Hollywood? TV writer strikes…
[via The Guardian]
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Bit harsh on the WGA maybe? The vast majority of writers in Hollywood don’t get paid that much and remember that most only get paid when they finish writing something. Residuals are the only way for them to keep paying the bills while actually working on something.
Currently they get 4 cents (literally tuppence!) per DVD sale. The WGA want to increase this to an entire 8 cents. And that is an insurmountable roadblock apparently. Actors get paid millions, plus a cut of the gross. The guy that puts the words into thier mouths gets almost nothing.
I’d suggest if you look more closely that it’s Mr Counter that’s having a little pout.
‘Huh. In London, we have postal strikes. In Hollywood? TV writer strikes…’
A good article except for this bit. This is quite pathetic reporting. You compare postal strikes to writer strikes. How in any way whatsoever does that tell us anything? Why does it matter how important the service is? What gives the people in our postal service any more right to strike than the writers in America? They are all human beings. They all deserve a decent income.