The Writer’s Guild strike is over. Joe Harris reports from the East Coast::
We didn’t get everything we wanted. Didn’t get a lot of what we wanted, actually. And we certainly didn’t get as much as we damn well deserved. 17 days of what’s now called a promotional window to watch programs online without having the pay writers their justly due residuals is odious in my opinion… even if the studios maintain that TiVo and DVR watching has changed the way viewers watch programming for the first/initial time.
Mark Evanier reports from the West.
A feeling of victory seemed to be the prevailing mood. I lost count of the well-deserved standing ovations and when they opened the floor microphones for questions or arguments, they began getting only questions and minor suggestions about deal points. As of the moment I left, no one had suggested that the deal not be ratified…and it would have been very easy for someone to say that if they’d genuinely felt it was improvable.
Just to qualify… I *am* supportive of this deal, my leadership and my Guild. We got what we could get and serious gains were made. You can read the entire post (with that grammatical error cleaned up) on my site’s blog linked under the name up top (I think…).
This is a good day for the WGA, Hollywood and all its revolving support systems and industry folk, and the American labor movement.
Once upon a time, the WGA would count fighting off the majority of studio-demanded ‘rollbacks’ as a victory. We really won quite a bit here and I’m very proud of my union.
So the big question is: How does this affect the Screen Actors Guild? Will they be offered an agreement similar to what the Writers and Directors agreed to? How fast can television productions start to get programs in the can before a possible Actors strike?
I see the Networks agreement over the `Net as another market to exploit. It could be a minor league market, used to develop pilots for television or film. Or a mature market, related to, but different from, movies and television. That will be the next evolution of the Internet, as it becomes a profitable market for original media content.
No payment for the first 17 days the web content goes live? That’s the window when the content will get the most hits before they fall off.
The writers got screwed. Again. 2 percent of nothing is still nothing.
And the writers think they have a victory?! Give me a break.