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Deal or Deal Some More

Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 11:34 am by Jami

Deal or Deal Some More

Maybe I’m not understanding the point of a strike, but doesn’t it undermine their goals if the Writers Guild of America continues to make piecemeal one-off deals? First it was Letterman’s show, then United Artists, and now the WGA has struck a deal with the Weinstein Company. Is there some sort of strike ninjitsu strategery that I’m just not getting? I mean, what happened to the good of the many outweighing the good of the few? Isn’t that what unions are all about?

I’m not sure what affect these individual deals will have on the major networks. We’re heading into a big reality season with American Idol just around the bend and the premier of a number of new reality based shows (I see commercials for all this shit now that we’re stuck with broadcast. I feel dumber already). There’s also a slew of new programs that are popping up that must have been in the hopper long before the strike took hold, Sara Conner Chronicles and that tv movie of Knight Rider come to mind. John Stewart and Colbert are back along with Leno and O’Brien without their writers. And with the guild making deals here and there, Letterman is back with his whole staff, and United Artists and the Weinstein’s are going to be pumping out movies like there’s no tomorrow. How again is this strike hurting the networks?

If you’re going to do something, go balls to the wall. The WGA needs to stop grabbing at crumbs and go for the big kill! These little deals may sound great in the short term, but you put your long-term goals in jeopardy. Who’s going to take you seriously if you talk tough at the same time you make little side deals? Doesn’t make any sense to me.

[Via Variety]

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 11:34 am and is filed under News, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Deal or Deal Some More”

  1. AvatarKunoichi
    Posted: Jan 11th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
    1

    The United Hollywood blog has done some good articles on why the piecemeal strategy can work. Essentially, the idea is that the WGA isn’t actually legally obligated to make a deal with producers through the AMPTP. They are, in fact, allowed to make deals for the WGA with each individual company. And *most* of the members of the AMPTP (like Letterman and United Artists) are not completely unreasonable, they just are afraid to break rank. The more companies that break rank and sign a deal the WGA likes, the better. Even better if they’re binding rather than interim agreements. If they can avoid dealing with the AMPTP entirely, that would be awesome. Let alone the questionable legality of the AMPTP as a negotiating body (it’s a group of competitors making agreements together with another party. This is normally called “collusion”)

    It’s all well and good to say they should go “balls to the wall”, but this situation has gotten thousands not protected by a guild fired, and means the vast majority of writers are coming to the point where they’re living on the guild’s strike protection funds, which can only last so long even with generous donations. Not only that, it’s killing LA’s economy. A long-lasting strike isn’t in anyone’s favor, but especially not in the WGA’s. And they *were* balls to the wall for a couple months, and it got them nowhere. The AMPTP’s negotiating team won’t negotiate at all, never mind in good faith.

  2. Avatarbuzzlefett
    Posted: Jan 11th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
    2

    I actually heard the executive director of WGA-East on the radio today. Her remark was that by getting individual companies to come to terms with the WGA allows them to keep other people in the entertainment industry (like grips, cameramen, etc) working so that they don’t get fired. It also gives the WGA more steam. If they can prove to the networks that these agreements are mutually agreeable by working with the smaller companies, than the networks will be more likely to strike a deal.

    Also, if the major networks are happy just showing reality programming and game shows while some of the smaller networks are showing scripted shows than they will eventually lose their audience.

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