Studios, Writers Guild Avert Strike With Last-Minute Deal (hollywoodreporter.com) 75
Jonathan Handel, writing for The Hollywood Reporter: Talks between the Writers Guild of America and AMPTP studio alliance went down to the wire Monday night but ultimately resulted in a three-year deal, averting a threatened walkout that could have cost jobs and homes, hit the California economy with a $200 million blow per week, accelerated cord-cutting and driven audiences off linear channels and onto digital platforms. David Young, executive director of WGA West, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that a deal had been reached. Leaving the closed door meetings, Patric Verrone, who was WGA president last time the guild went on strike in 2007-2008, told THR it was a good deal for the writers. Michael Winship, president of Writers Guild East, echoed Verrone's comments and added that the union effectively mobilized the membership with the authorization.
Oh well (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't like it write, watch something else (Score:2)
I'd say that the most important element of a television show or a movie is the writing-- if it's badly written and doesn't make any sense, it hardly matters whether the acting and cinematography are good or bad. But your mileage may vary.
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That's hardly new - though it has accelerated in recent years. One of the most famous examples is Star Trek. The original series was a network show, and Roddenberry was never entirely happy with the result because he had to constantly deviate from his real vision to please network executives who didn't want to show anything that may upset conservatives. That first interracial kiss may have been groundbreaking but it was about as far as he could go.
When he decided to do Star Trek again - he didn't go back to
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Yeah. The last writer's strike gave us Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog. Would be nice to force them to get creative again.
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All culture is recycling. Ain't nothing new.
Shakespeare lifted the plots of Julius Caesar, Anthony & Cleopatra, Coriolanus and other plays entirely from Plutarch, down to the smallest detail.
Troilus and Cressida, and Mercutio's Queen Mab speech were all from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
Stories is stories. You can dress 'em up, you can add sex or turn it into an animated movie starring cars with faces, but it's the same stories.
Further, when someo
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Truly a sad day for humanity. What an incredible lost opportunity.
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That was all the drama they could come up with this year. As I see it the scenario went like this....
Writers: "What do we want to do this year?"
Studios: "How about we publish in the news that we are in dispute and create a little suspense of our own eminent demise"
Writers: "I like it, not only will we generate concern for us, but then we will not have to write any new material this year"
Studios: "I like it, it's a win-win for both of us and we still will not produce any thing people will watch."
Collective bargaining makes no sense (Score:1, Insightful)
If you aren't good enough to deserve a favorable contract, why should someone better lend you their merit?
If California got a right-to-work law, these unions would dry up and blow away overnight.
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Fine. I have contacted all your underwriters and canceled all your insurance policies. I fail to see why my safer driving and healthy diet should inure to your benefit.
Lets see here... (Score:1)
Spoken like a true Fountainhead-thumping Objectivist:
Fine. I have contacted all your underwriters and canceled all your insurance policies. I fail to see why my safer driving and healthy diet should inure to your benefit.
Rand has turned out to be prophetic with Atlas Shrugged. I wonder why you neglected that one and went to a much earlier book which was more fiction than Philosophy. Fit your ideology better?
Next, your safe driving and healthy diet don't inure anyone's benefits except your own. Health insurance rates vary by risk factor, as does Driving insurance, Malpractice insurance, and any other insurance you want to purchase. Perhaps you should investigate what Insurance actually is and how it works. Oh, I know..
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They do? Last I checked I pay the same as all my coworkers, and the risk assessment is done as a pool.
In other words, you were dishonest (Score:2)
They do? Last I checked I pay the same as all my coworkers, and the risk assessment is done as a pool.
You attempted to claim that people benefited due to your good driving and eating habits. If what you claim is true regarding your insurance: Your insurance does not give benefits to anyone because of you, and does not take away benefits due to someone else. Your "good" behavior is balanced into costs just like someone else' "bad" is balanced into cost. You can't have it both ways.
Why don't you tell us which car insurance you have that would not raise your rates if you had traffic accidents and tickets?
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If you have an accident, your premiums go up. Your rates reflect the risk that you have on the pool, and always do. You are ignoring what insurance is and how it works. The insurer has to put up money ahead of time based on risk assessment. If you change your risk value you will pay more, and that payment is like a mortgage. Insurance will eventually cut your plan if you become too high of a risk.
Your next insurance company will give you a much higher premium because they are aware of your risk to the
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You mean the writer who championed personal responsibility and ended up on government assistance?
WTF? (Score:1)
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If you're going to make your entire reason for existence arguing that the government shouldn't help anyone and then be the first one in line for government help, it's just not a good look.
There is virtually nothing about Atlas Shrugged that has been
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You completely avoided my question about Social Security. Funny how leftism works isn't it? Here [aynrand.org] is a read for you. Consider it possible that you are the hypocrite, not Rand.
Not prophetic? The consumption of media by talking heads to push propaganda in the US: Check. Pushing dialogue because "feelings" in spite of facts: Check. Massively increased taxes and for wealth redistribution: Check. Expansion of regulations to ensure Government control over the economy and businesses: Check. The "progress
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Atlas Shrugged was fiction.
She did write a Philosophy book, but it was called "Philosophy: Who Needs It?"
Why is it that these types of Randhead morons don't even read her books? She tears into them pretty hard in Who Needs It, for being moronic followers instead of real Objectivists. As she also points out, real Objectivists are likely to disagree with her often because she isn't an expert in very many fields and they should be trying to advance their understanding not just find something to repeat.
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Claiming Atlas Shrugged was fiction is like claiming JRR Tolkien 's books had nothing to do with Christianity. The purpose of the book was to display the end game of progressivism/marxism in the US. The "progressive" movement has been around since the very early 1900s.
Most of the people commenting never read any of her books, which becomes obvious with irrational claims.
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You clearly haven't even read the book. You read a website that lied to you and told you it was telling you about the book.
You can also use a dictionary and look up the word "fiction." Writing a story to give social commentary about the real world by using imaginary characters? That's just fiction, man. There is no need to go all, "oh, oh, oh, she wrote it for the purpose of political commentary, that means it isn't fiction!" No, it means you're an idiot.
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Intellectual dishonestly deserves ridicule, and it does reflect negatively on ones personal character.
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you got this in reverse, Unions work when not undermined by the state. The purpose of right to work is not to help employees, but to undermine unions.
Insurance companies were doing fine before the mandate, but citizens were not.
And good actors, writers, and skilled workers still benefit from the union, just as much as the mediocre does.
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It's because everyone thinks they're a good driver, including the really bad drivers.
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Because that is not how contracts work. The business will try and squeeze you out for everything. Rarely will you get what you are worth when you go on your own.
Supply and demand (Score:3)
Seems it's original material that's missing these days. There's loads of pretty faces that can recite lines with a medium emotional range.
Say what you want but if there was no demand for their work no one would bother to negotiate with them.
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Basically, the WGA is a union. They work to prevent the studios from shafting the writers, which is something that the studios are notorious for doing. (the old saw used to be that (for some studios) payment was "on receipt of lawsuit.")
I believe the summary quote is right... (Score:2)
I can't believe either side let things get this far, because it just makes the truth more obvious and the more obvious it is, the faster the revolution goes.
Neither studio nor writer had any leverage here. Both sides had everything to lose and nothing to win.
One day we'll admit broadcast is a dead medium and concentrate on delivery of on-demand streams over the Internet, perhaps leaving a few FTA PBS stations in a much reduced spectrum so the poorest and most rural folk still have something.
Of course, as t
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Of course, as the airwaves are national property, so the copper, fiber optic, and microwaves of the Internet should also be. Information infrastructure is too critical in the Information Age to let regional monopolies hold it hostage.
So monopoly is evil but you'd hand over control of the net to the biggest monopolist of them all? Radio is fundamentally different. It does not have the infrastructure and maintenance costs of cabling.
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The government is - in theory - a monopoly beholden to the population. A regional private monopoly is responsible only to their shareholders.
As the government maintains most roads, it can build, maintain, and operate most data infrastructure... either directly or by contracting the work out as required.
And as with roads, it can levy taxes to support the work. The entire economy depends on it these days (and more than that, it's critical for culture and knowledge flow as well), it's not like you're enrichi
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" It does not have the infrastructure and maintenance costs of cabling."
Spoken like someone that has never run power cable to one of those broadcast towers. That maintenance cost still exists, just not quite as costly.
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Of course, as the airwaves are national property, so the copper, fiber optic, and microwaves of the Internet should also be. Information infrastructure is too critical in the Information Age to let regional monopolies hold it hostage.
Congratulations, you've just joined a very select fraternity of those who understand what true "network neutrality" would look like. Ignore the other response from the idiot who doesn't get it because he's been brainwashed by libertarian B.S. In his mindless hatred of all forms of guv'mint, he fails to grasp that by definition nothing owned by the public can possibly be a monopoly.
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Of course, as the airwaves are national property, so the copper, fiber optic, and microwaves of the Internet should also be. Information infrastructure is too critical in the Information Age to let regional monopolies hold it hostage.
BTW, my favorite corollary is the American system of national highways, owned by the people and not by the companies who constructed each piece of them. Can you imagine the nightmarish toll system for profit that would exist now if the construction companies had been allowed to claim ownership instead of being merely subcontractors?
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Can you imagine the nightmarish toll system for profit that would exist now if the construction companies had been allowed to claim ownership instead of being merely subcontractors?
All the good roads around here are toll roads anyhow, or toll lanes on otherwise unusable freeways. So you're really just arguing about who gets the money. With the full automation of tolling, there's no inconvenience involved any more, just a cost. Toll roads in my experience are just better quality roads than otherwise, so I'm OK with that (I hear it's quite different on the East Coast).
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The toll roads that do exist, with rare exceptions like 17 Mile Drive, are still publicly owned. The existence of the tolls means they were (re-)built since the heyday of tax-funded highway building in the country (before my time). That is also why they're "better quality": they're simply newer. For reasons I can't fathom, people so despised the idea of a new tax or bond to pay for roadwork or a bridge that they voted for the institution of a toll instead. Yes, we're certainly arguing about who gets the
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You say profit like it's a bad thing. Profit is the driver for all progress.
The reason roads work better with government ownership is right-of-way. Simple logistics.
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Profit is the driver for all progress.
History proves otherwise. Most of what you consider progress is the result of a very small minority of gifted individuals whose discoveries and inventions were EXPLOITED FOR PROFIT by a very small minority of greedy individuals. The progress would have happened even if profit had been removed from the process. History also contains examples of just that, progress that was cooperative and collaborative instead of competitive. Promoting this distortion of history demonstrates that you are one of the greed
OH THANK GOD! (Score:5, Funny)
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And now the contractors in the cubes around me think I'm insane, after an extremely loud outburst of laughter.
Worth it.
Not like the deal matters much (Score:2)
The quality wouldn't improve or worsen much any ways, no matter if they had come to an agreement or not.
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Survivor was on the air WELL before the last major Writer's Strike. Try again!
Life imitates art (Score:3)
Loss of homes? (Score:2)
...ultimately resulted in a three-year deal, averting a threatened walkout that could have cost jobs and homes...
I mean, I guess it's correct since people without jobs may default on their mortgages, but why are homes mentioned like the writer's strike is going to have a direct impact on California's house-building industry?