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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/business/media/05carr.html?ref=media
November 5, 2007
The Media Equation
New Media, New Value, Old Troubles
By DAVID CARR
In the hierarchy of things the American public seems not to care about — the national debt, Paris Hilton’s charitable works, Fred D. Thompson’s campaign for president — the Hollywood screenwriters’ strike probably wins hands down.
If negotiations that were continuing deep into the night were unsuccessful and no delay was agreed upon, this morning 12,000 members of the Writers Guild of America will be trading their laptops for picket signs in New York and Los Angeles.
The financial markets, along with the public, has yet to muster much more than a yawn about the possibility that the authors of much of the content in theaters and on television will walk away and wait for a better offer from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
It’s been almost 20 years since the last writers’ strike, and those who do remember probably recall that everyone managed to get through it with a minimum of trauma. There were still movies to see, television programs to watch, and hey, if Letterman was a little short on jokes, no worries. He’ll be back.
The question this time around is different for both the studios and the writers: will viewers be back?
Just in case you haven’t been following it closely — shocking, that — the writers announced a strike to begin today over the producers’ unwillingness to give them what they figure is a fair cut of the so-called new-media revenue and to revisit the issue of compensation for DVDs.
Screenwriters argue that their labors generally create programming that has very high value — value that would seem to multiply as it spread over more platforms.
Media companies have a story to tell as well: If they are about to make jillions on new media, the markets don’t seem to think so.
If the strike is a lengthy one, television will slowly begin to reflect that the writers’ room has emptied out. Some talk shows will hit the repeat button immediately; soap operas will dry up; and after a time, some episodic television shows will run out of new material.
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