God, I miss The Daily Show. I miss Letterman. I'm going to miss Scrubs.
Ahem.
The negotiations between the big billion-dollar studios and the few million-dollar writers with hundreds of starving artists attached are continuing today. The studios are set to finish their propoal, including a flat rate for streaming online content, and the WGA will make a counter-offer after that. Hollywood Wiretap has a good summation of the latest news, and it's a weird mix of nice and nasty.
An ad running in today’s trades, however, seems to do away with the rancor and presents a softer side of the AMPTP. In the ad, the group says its proposal isn’t a “take-it-or-leave-it offer…It is designed to allow both sides to engage in the kind of substantive give-and-take negotiation that can lead to common ground. The WGA leadership asked for five days to respond. So with the ball in the WGA’s court, we look forward to what they have to say when we meet today.”
“This is not a zero-sum campaign where there is one winner and one loser,” the ad continues. “We need the writers and the writers need us. And we need to work together if we are to navigate the rapids of this increasingly complex, high-tech economy.”
That sounds nice, doesn't it? But then this happens.
With the press blackout lifted last week, several top company heads called members of the Fourth Estate on Friday. The intent seemed to be to convey management frustrations with the guild and its chief negotiator, WGA West executive director David Young, says the Hollywood Reporter.
“I do think this whole thing calls into question David Young’s ability to make a deal,” a top management exec said. “He has no experience in these sorts of negotiations, and so perhaps there is something to that theory that they’re not capable of making a deal.
“You can say what you want about the AMPTP, but for 20 years they’ve been able to make a deal,” the exec added. “The fact is that you have to wonder about the current leadership at the WGA and its ability to get something done here.”
The fact that writers often don't retain the copyright on their own work should help you say what you will about the AMPTP. Or maybe this will.
Meanwhile, a Hollywood mogul, summing up the negotiations thus far, told Nikki Finke “We’re tough, and they’re stupid.”
