WGA set to strike - TV Season could be truncated/delayed (1 Viewer)

[Scott-S]

It is too bad that we will now lose the ability to watch episodes of shows online. Since the agreement included the writers getting paid even for "free streaming" the studios wont want to provide them to us anymore I bet.

It doesnt make sense to me that the writers wanted money for something that the studio was providing for free.

 

[ThomasC]

They still air commercials online; it's no different from airing stuff on broadcast TV. I don't pay a penny for TV, I just use an antenna. Unless the studios are losing money by providing shows online, I doubt that they would stop doing it.

 

[Scott-S]

I assumed that the online stuff was sort of a marketing/advertisement thing. Not a revenue thing. But maybe I am wrong about that. It is hard to believe they could make much of advertisement online.

 

[Rocky F]

Actually, as I understand it, that's really part of the big picture. Right now, the studios and networks really aren't making a lot of money with online presentations of shows, but they are trying to figure out how to monetize it, and they eventually will. The writer's do not want a repeat of what happened with home video, where the suits said "Well, we're not making any money with home video," the writers signed a contract for a tiny portion of that market, and all of a sudden it blew up into a multi-billion dollar industry, and they're just getting peanuts.

That's an oversimplification, I know, and I'm certainly no insider, but that's they way that I've been reading it.

 

[Scott-S]

The biggest problem I see is that very few (if any) people would pay to watch a tv show online when it you can just watch it when it airs. I look at it like a convenience. If I happen to miss something, I can catch it online if I want to. I would never pay for that service.

Just like ads pay for broadcast TV shows, the same would need to hold true for watching something online.

 

[Brian W. Ralston]

That is starting to be the case. Even though the TV shows on the web are free...the networks are charging more and more money to advertise on those websites with little spots running before the free stream...or ads that are constantly shown to the right of the viewer, etc...

Those ads are charged a set fee and that fee increases as the clicks and number of streams watching that "free TV" increase. Just like free broadcast television. The higher the ratings for a particular show, the more the commerical time costs to be shown during that time slot.

All of the money is made with the commericals folks. To think that the network is not making anything on it becasue they are giving it away for free is VERY wrong. They are not making money from you. But they are using the draw of you wanting to see it online, for whatever reason, as a way to say to an advertiser, "We have ####### viewers to our website...which means that many viewers will see your ad or commercial...which means to place an ad there for a week it will cost you $xxx,xxx.xx."

Without a show online to get you to click on those web pages..you would never go there and they would never have this revenue stream. So...don't you think the writers who created that programming that is generating revenue should get a piece of that pie if their show is the entire reason that revenue stream exists? It is the same principle of the royalty structure already agreed upon and in place on free broadcast television. So...that same model should apply to the internet as well. And one day, the internet will probably take over and be the #1 way you get your television delivered. And if such a royalty structure were not in place...then having to pay the writer's anythng would eventually be phased out. And that is the whole point of the strike.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

Google didn't become a multi-billion dollar company pretty much over night by charging people to use their search engine. It is all about online advertising.

 

[Josh Dial]

Just because you don't understand what is going on, doesn't make the show "retarded."

 

[DaveF]

Companies are pushing online services -- many of which charge for TV and movies. This is not just low-quality, free streaming video anymore. I assume these are the sorts of things the WGA is thinking of when pushing for royalties on online media.

AppleTV
NetFlix Streaming Video
Amazon Unbox
Tivo with integrated Amazon Unbox
Hulu

As for online media having no value (and this is almost cliche it's so used), why did Viacom sue YouTube for $1,000,000,000 in 2007 for copyright infringement?

I don't know what the future of television is, but many people believe it's online.

 

[Brian^K]

I've been away from this thread for a while, but I came across an article today that I thought was relevant and important to raise in the context of earlier discussions about the relative merits of the writers versus that of the networks.

Time for writers to rethink strike - Television - MSNBC.com

"The networks have figured out it can make a nice buck with or without scripted shows."

Time is running out for the writers. I still maintain that they don't deserve the power that they have, but despite that, their relative ineffectiveness bringing audience in, as compared to what the networks can bring in without them and their higher costs, is quickly eroding even their mis-begotten power.

 

[TravisR]

While no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public, they will grow tired of the game/reality garbage programs. The networks can probably wait out the writers and they are no doubt still making money without real shows but they'll need them again at some point.

 

[pitchman]

Well, speaking as someone who is "just" a viewer with no hidden agenda or vested interest one way or another, my network TV watching has slowed to a trickle. With the possible exception of American Idol (which I have not been able to sit through a full episode of this season), I simply do not watch reality programs. No Survivor, Gladiators, Deal or No Deal, etc. Right now, the only programs I record (and watch) on a weekly basis are Lost, Smallville, Boston Legal, Medium and Friday Night Lights. Add to that Jericho, when it returns in February, and that is it.

If the networks seriously think that more reality programming is the wave of the future (and the way to greater profits and more control), then more power to them. I, for one, will find better things to occupy my time rather than subject my brain to an endless parade of this drek. As always, YMMV, but realty programming leaves me cold...

 

[Ken Chan]

From that article:In the TV business, the audience is the product, the advertisers are the customers, and everything the writers, actors, and everyone else does is just an enticement to bring the former to the latter. Plus, the studio execs get to hang around the pretty people and occasionally bang a few of them.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Exactly. Reality shows that are hits now with virtually no competition on the other networks would plummet against the mutual competition of a full-on scripted schedule.
The few shows that are hits now are hits because there's nothing else to watch.

 

[Brian^K]

I don't think the point is so much that every reality show will do better than every scripted show, but enough reality shows are doing better than the scripted shows they replaced to be notable, and the advantage doubly-sweet given the cost savings. I also don't think that the issue is that reality will replace scripts wholesale, but rather that instead of the decline and fall of reality programming predicted for many years now, we're seeing that reality is a legitimate genre, that along with scripted dramas and sitcoms, will be a stalwart of the network stable. When networks have more choices, they have more leverage, and each of their suppliers have less leverage.

This goes hand-in-glove with the ascendancy of networks purchasing programs from Canada over the past week. Another case of networks having more choices.

 

[Quentin]

Reality is a legitimate genre...but, it has no longevity. No secondary use. Not cable, not syndication, not DVD...not even network re-runs. No one watches reality more than once. Survivor tried to sell DVD's and it failed.

Scripts are still very much needed for TV product. And, don't forget movies!

 

[seanOhara]

VH1 must be bleeding money, given how much they rerun America's Next Top Model, I Love New York, The Flava of Love, The Rock of Love, The Hogans, and Celebrity Rehab.

 

[Brian^K]

Absolutely, but perhaps less than in the past, and that's especially true of scripts specifically written by Hollywood writers (as opposed to Canadians, for example).

 

[Quentin]

You have to make money to bleed money.

 

[Brian W. Ralston]

You guys are starting to have a discussion which implies that television is the only thing in the entertainment industry writers write for.

All of these issues (including "new media" like internet delivery) are equally present for those who write for films, both on the independent and studio level.

I know this is stating the obvious, but the WGA negotiators have to equally represent television and film script writers...and all the various areas in between.