Why WGA Writers Are On Strike

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This seems like a pretty clear explanation to me (you'd almost think these guys are professionals). And it's REASONABLE, people.

ps. I've thought of one more thing I can do. Until writers get more for DVD sales, no more buying DVDs. Since the holiday season is coming up soon, maybe that's one way to hit the corporations in the one place it'll hurt.


eta: Other folks are talking about boycotting DVD’s and internet streams of tv and movies. As was pointed out in an interview by my favorite comedy writer Pam Ribon, we need to make sure that any effort like this needs to include telling the networks (and I’d guess the press and WGA since the networks aren’t going to share that info) why we’re doing it. Otherwise they could just use any dip to support their ridonkulous* argument that the streams are too new to have profits they can share.

*I first learned this word when a WGA writer put it in an episode of How I Met Your Mother. Credit where credit is due, ya know?

I love TV. I probably watch way too much of it, but those folks who say (in a tone I always hear as snotty whether they intend it or not) “we don’t have a television” or even just “we don’t have cable” have a high bar to get over if they’re ever going to be my friends. TV is the dominant creative artistic medium of our time (even if some of that dominance has diminished in the last few years). At its best it can fun and informative. At its worst, I change the channel or turn it off. TV is not perfect, but it can be inspiring (The West Wing), soothing (Dancing with the Stars), exhilarating (The Amazing Race), gut-achingly funny (30 Rock), even intellectually challenging (Battlestar Galactica). The writers of most of this brilliant entertainment are set to go on strike at midnight tonight.

Most of the coverage I see of the potential strike has a “what it means for viewers” angle, which I guess makes sense given that most of us are viewers and not creators. But it really misses the point. I’m probably going to be inconvenienced by this strike. My favorite shows will go away for a while (some of the newer ones may never come back). I’ll NetFlix, and I’ll read, and I’ll spend more time online.

What I will try not to do is just mindlessly consume whatever crap the networks put on in place of my shows. Because I value what the writers do. All of it (okay 99.9%) comes out of their amazing creative and hardworking brains. These are thinking people, and I like to believe I have some kinship with that. I like to think I’m more like the writers than the studio execs who spend their days thinking about financing and marketing and such (there’s a reason I’d never get a business degree).

As thinking, creative people it was ironically the Writers Guild of America (WGA), not the bean-counters, who realized back in the 1980’s that the VCR was going to change how people watched TV and movies. So they got residuals for videotape sales added to their contracts. The amount was miniscule, but it was a start. As DVD sales have sky-rocketed and begun to count for a larger piece of the profits they’re asking for more. And they’re asking to add residuals for internet airings of their shows and movies. The principle behind that is the same as in the 80’s; here’s a new medium that is changing how we consume their product and they should share in the profits of it. The studios say they can’t figure out how to count those profits. Seems like it’s pretty easy to say “we just sold that episode for $1.99 on iTunes, here’s how much of that is profit and here’s your share.” It’s not that they can’t, it’s that they don’t want to. The network heads are under pressure by their own corporate bosses (GE, etc.) to raise their profits. I get that. I just don’t think that’s the writers’ problem.

That principle I mentioned actually goes back way before the 80’s, to the days of radio. Unless the studios want to walk away from residuals altogether (which I’m sure they’d love to do) it’s unconscionable to try and leave the internet out of it.

So as a viewer I will do what I can to show that I’m not on the studios’ side here. It isn’t much and it’ll go against the grain. I’ll watch my shows until they run out of union-generated scripts. I will try to keep track online of when those run out, and I’ll stop watching if they bring in scabs. I won’t go so far as saying I won’t watch reality TV, which is what they’ll fill the schedule with (the WGA has GOT to get those “editors” in the union one of these days to strengthen their position) but I won’t watch reality crap (either pre-existing crap that we all know is just on because it’s cheap to produce, or new crap they start filming now to fill time slots). As I said, it’s not much and maybe I should say I’ll just turn off my TV. But I’m trying to be honest; I know I won’t do that.

This matters to me for lots of reasons. One I wouldn’t have been able to predict a few years ago is all about the influence of the internet on TV. Several years ago, I was surfing around, looking for websites about a show I had just fallen in love with but that none of my friends were watching – The Amazing Race. What I found was Television Without Pity (now a part of that crazy GE corporate family, but still fabulous). Turns out that several of the funny creative people who were writing about TV on that site are now funny, creative people writing for TV (Pamie, DJB, Stee, AB Chao, just to start with). These folks don’t know me, but I feel like I know them, at least a little. I want this strike to work out for American labor, and for principle, but also for these good people. I believe in this strike because I believe in them. I want them to be able to make their rent, and car payments, and mortgage payments even when they might be between gigs. And the way that happens is if they get a tiny piece of the money that studios continue to make years later from their work. I wish them luck. And I hope there’s a deal coming quickly, for their sakes more than for mine.