Here is one answer, here is another. Here are 2,503 other answers. I believe "We still don’t know" is the correct answer. I do know I can expect to see 13 of a planned 16 episodes of Lost, which, given their long-arching plot lines, is probably a welfare improvement all around. Battlestar Galactica should do OK. In other words, I won the strike.
Nobody won. Or rather, neither of the two participants in the slow-mo game of chicken won…
Oops I contradicted myself – I wish someone had an editable comment engine. I’ll go with my second “prediction” – TC supporting, AT not.
Well, just to be romantic, because the writers aren’t business entities, they’re people. And by your logic, why would one cheer for either side in the Super Bowl or the FA Cup?
Unions are made up of people, corporations are made up of faceless evil barons. You didn’t know that?
why should a company have to continue to pay for anything that is manufactured? If the writers want back end, then write away for free and see what happens. As a producer myself I am now looking for non WGA projects for 100% buyout as the disbursements and accounting behind a film will cost as much as the film itself.
Because the item manufactured makes consistent revenues. This actually is better for everyone involved because it better aligns the cost associated with the creation with the revenue created. Paying a lump sum would increase the risk on the producer side since the lack of residuals would increase the upfront cost.
Writing is a skill and those who get paid for it should know that there are millions of people who want what they have…to be paid for writing a screened project.
You could say the same about pro athletes, investment bankers and traders. Some people are better at it and get paid more for it. Deal with it. Or are markets not ok when you don’t like the participants?
the writers don’t have pointed mustaches that they coil between their fingers, whilst cackling about the pretty maiden they’ve tied to the tracks?
Tom…i’m really asking a question. It’s my understanding that the writer’s union truly is a business. You’ve chosen to put a pretty, belabored, crushed-under-the-heel-of-evil-studios face on it, but it truly *is* a business, that collects dues from its members and works to extend the reach of its corporatism. So, we’ve ended up with one business against another. If you want to put a face on the studios, it’s every shareholder, or board member…
I loathe most “reality tv”. Should I blame the writer’s strike, or market forces?
shawn – I think you are projecting – I don’t see that I said anything that could be interpreted as moustache-twirlers vs. noble-sons-of-the-soil. Just that I was cheering for the writers.
Some people see a union as an independent business that contracts to represent a client (the bargaining unit) and others see a union as a mechanism for employees to work together as a group. Those of us who are pro-union generally live in the hope that a good union is a democratic expression of the collective will of its members. Whether it actually is or not varies hugely from place to place of course, and I have no insight into the writers’ union. Still, in that hope I cheer them on.
Down with top-hatted, cigar-chomping studio executives!
david geertz: Good question. Along that line, why should consumers have to pay for things that are already manufactured? A copy of a movie has zero marginal cost. It seems silly that I should pay my neighbor for a copy of his DVD.
I don’t care who won the strike because I don’t watch TV
The public lost. More reality shows on TV.
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