Posted on 01/12/2008 3:31:01 AM PST by abb
The Hollywood writers' strike claimed its biggest casualty this past week when the threat of picket lines forced NBC to pare back the annual Golden Globes awards ceremony.
The network will air an hour-long news conference Sunday night instead of the star-studded, hours-long dinner event that drew 20 million viewers last year.
The upending of the awards season comes as more television shows air their remaining first-run episodes produced before the strike began on Nov. 5. Popular entertainers such as Jay Leno, meanwhile, have faced criticism for crossing picket lines and returning to work earlier this month after showing reruns for weeks.
Here's a closer look:
Why are writers striking? The Writers Guild of America, which represents 12,000 screenwriters, went on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers last fall after their three-year studio contract expired. At stake: how the studios compensate writers for work distributed over the Internet.
Writers are demanding a uniform 2.5% of revenue for recycled or original work that appears online, an increase from current rates that vary depending on viewership. Studio owners want to apply the residual formula currently used for home videos to digital media.
But that doesn't sit well with the writers. Their 1985 contract established the current residual model for then-fledgling home-video sales -- 0.3% of the first $1 million of revenue and 0.36% on each unit sold after that, which amounts to less than five cents for a $20 disc -- shortly before the home-video market exploded. DVDs generated $23.4 billion in sales last year, compared with $9.6 billion in box-office returns.
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(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
ping
Leno always struck me as someone who was nice to the working guy but only when it was convenient for himself. He tries to come off as just folks, but he's just as hungry for the fame and money as any of them. I guess he was starving and needed to pay some bills.
It’s interesting when FReepers side with union labor over capitalism.
I’m just jabbing at you, and raising the point that things aren’t black and white. Leno went back into production, but he didn’t hire scab writers — he’s writing his own monologues, dropping the sketches, and filling out the show with interviews and musical acts. So I’d bet even WGA members are a bit ambivalent.
The longer Leno stays off the air, the more folks form other habits. Once Jon Stewart went back on the air, Leno had to. Because if Leno’s fans went over to the Daily Show, he couldn’t get them back when the strike ends. We know Leno as a host, but he’s also a producer — his show is a business, and he’s got to look out for it.
>It’s interesting when FReepers side with union labor over capitalism.
Isn’t it? Jay is one of us. He is a right of center republican who openly supports the conservative agenda, and that in the middle of the most virilent anti American leastist kooks on the planet.
Union strike? I hope they all curl up and die.
What planet are you on? Or what are you smoking?
Jay is actually a very liberal democrat who’s wife is a very far left feminist, abortion rights supporter.
He ain’t no Republican.
Last I heard he was a registered pub. If he has changed that is too bad for us.
his wife is another matter. Thanks.
On a normal basis, I wouldn’t care at all about this. This year was my year for movies. What can I say?
I just want to see the “Hairspray” cast perform “You Can’t Stop the Beat.” I’m not asking a lot.
It will probably be on youtube before long if not already.
The most surprising thing about this writers strike for me was finding out how many of these lame productions had actual writers. No wonder they unionized, no one would pay these hacks as individuals.
the media, they are not dead yet, dummy!
they’re going to help elect a democrap u.s. congress and el presidente in 2008.
si.
By their works shall ye know them.
W can speculate on his party registration, but the vote is private. Besides which it doesn’t matter. If we are going to conclude what he believes, the best way is to observe what he does, And in this case, what he says, because In Leno’s case what he does for a living is talk.
I do side with union labor, but it’s not “over capitalism”. There’s nothing anti-capitalistic about those providing labor banding together. No one ever calls it anti-capitalistic when corporations do the same thing.
This is news to me.
Not live.
Oh well, we can’t always get what we want, can we? I’ll just watch the movie again.
........No one ever calls it anti-capitalistic when corporations do the same thing........
Actually, corporations are prevented from banding together to set prices of thier products like the unions do
I’ll thank you not to refer to me as ‘dummy.’
“I guess he was starving and needed to pay some bills”
Are you saying Jay is incapable of writing for himself? or shouldn’t?
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