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Studios, Writers Guild Avert Strike With Last-Minute Deal (hollywoodreporter.com)
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.
Would have been nice to send a bunch of "writers" packing. They don't so much write today as they do recycle anyway. No wonder people are moving their eyes away to new venues.
Well, this was all rather anti-climatic, wasn't it?
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.
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.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
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 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.
I thought we were going to have to watch stale repetitive, mind numbing bullshit. Oh... I guess I misread it. They didn't strike.
... hit the California economy with a $200 million blow per week
On first reading I thought that's an awful lot of cocaine those writers go through.
The quality wouldn't improve or worsen much any ways, no matter if they had come to an agreement or not.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
gained.
at least we won't have a summer filled with reruns, crappy programming and even more "reality" shows..... owait
Even in real life writers in Hollywood have to reboot everything. Take something from 10 years ago, update bits of the story, recast some of the main actors, and change the ending.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
... was that the last one? Who cares, I don't think I've watched any TV other than Ash vs EvilDead since then. AvED is Groovy Baby!
I was actually hoping for a strike. There's so much bad garbage out there. Forget about plot and character development. Forget about any memorable content. All they seem to want to do is shock viewers.
Gets old. Real quick.
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.. that probably does not fit your ideology either.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
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.
...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?
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? Show me a single insurance company which gives the same rates to a 18 year old that they do to a 40 year old with the same driving records. I don't know a single company that exists which does not change your rate based on your driving habits. Meaning, people with bad behavior pay more due to higher risk. As with above, you can't have it both ways.
Mom always said honesty is the best policy, try it sometimes.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
When people want to cut Social Security and Medicate Leftists yell "people are entitled", "you hate the elderly", and "people pay into the system for retirement", but when it's a person who disagrees with your ideology its "Government Assistance". So which is it? Welfare that we can look at cutting or "retirement for all Americans"? You leftists need to get your shit together.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
.. and that is exactly what is happening, and why collectively the 'old market' providers are scrambling. Why do you think buying your cable service ala carte is lobbied against so heavily? Gotta protect those old ideas and old revenue streams somehow. Some smart people have taken notice and are pouring money into effectively replacing Hollywood by creating their own movies and TV series that you can watch individually, and it's working. Game of Thrones, House of Cards, The Grand Tour, etc.
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 the network, he funded it himself, in a studio rented from a movie company and made it independently - then syndicated a result defined by his own vision - and produced TNG. Personally I consider TNG a far superior series - exactly because he didn't have to compromise. A lot of the logical inconsistencies of TOS went away when nobody told him he couldn't show his preferred solutions. The extreme misogyny that is oh so prevalent in TOS is completely missing from TNG, where women characters were multi-dimensional and excelled even in positions of authority. As Doctor Katherine Polaski pointed out in her final appearance: she was the one person on board the enterprise who could order Picard to do something he didn't want to do. And one of the sequels to that even had a women captain. Meantime ToS had exactly one notable female character and her role mostly consisted of repeating whatever the computer said and one-time kissing the captain.
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