As long as those executive salaries don’t take a hit though, right? Anything to keep working class people down (which is what a vast majority of writers in the union are).

So the demands are only unreasonable because the streamers overextended and are losing money? It's ok for studios and streamers to exploit workers because they managed their business poorly?

If the streamers and studios are making less money, they need to cut back on spending, yes, but that doesn't mean that those working have to accept unsustainable wages. Again, the streamers and studios can just cut back on the total number of shows if they're spending too much; the idea that it's ok to pay people slave wages just to keep the number of shows produced up is morally reprehensible.

Keep in mind that the union contracts are for years and years, not just this immediate year. If the studios want to cry economic hardship, they can open their books to the union, and they can negotiate some temporary allowances, like some provisions not kicking in for a year or so. Except the studios don't want to do that, because they're only using the immediate situation as a smokescreen to justify paying less forever, just like they used the excuse of streaming being "new" in the last contract negotiation to get lower rates for streaming shows. Think about that: streamers and studios have been paying writers and actors less for over a decode for streaming shows, and somehow they still managed to lose money, so it's obviously not the wages that is the issue. If they don't spend it on the talent, they'll just fritter it away on something else, like producing too many shows, or executive salaries.

I was in a union at one job, and during contract renegotiations, the company had to be extremely careful to not say "we can't afford it," because if they did, the union would have the legal right to look at the accounting and confirm that's actually true. And of course it never was; the company just didn't want to pay more. So I feel zero sympathy for the "economic hardship" angle of the studios and streamers. They made stupid bets and overspent, all while exploiting their workers, and while they're now making less money, it's still billions in overall revenue, and that revenue can be better shared with talent while making barely a dent in it.

I really can't stand this "they can't afford it" line. They aren't losing money. They're just not making as much as they want to. We all know how "Hollywood accounting" works. They could make the most successful films of all time be "money losers." Their greed knows no bounds, and it's enabled by people like Gizmo who just believe their lies. Why? Why would you believe them?

"out of hand"

Please show the accounting you did that shows that somehow the costs will be "out of hand" for shows if writers and actors are employed at reasonable levels, for a reasonable period of time, for reasonable compensation.

Good thing CEO and executive compensation isn't "out of hand."

Aren't the demands the equivalent of less than 1% of studio revenue, yearly?

It never is.

This is, like, Capitalism 101.

It's the same way when a CEO drives a company into the ground and then floats away on an eight-figure golden parachute.

I’m not super versed in Hollywood history, but wasn’t there an old “studio system” mode whereby the studios owned the production chain end to end, including distributions. With that you’d be contracted as an employees, but say be a pen writer on various projects. Wouldn’t something like that be more desirable? We’re essentially in writers as Uber drivers situation.

I know everyone is super obsessed with the pay of CEOs and think it’s directly correlated to the strike. So if they cut their pay suddenly the writers making a minimum of $1000 a day will get a huge pay raise? Maybe those writers getting 8/9 figure paydays can spread their wealth? Let me guess - not a chance!

Keep drinking that mainstream propaganda news up! When this is all over, we can laugh at the scripted bloodbath.

Do you believe all of these studios (steamers) are lying to their shareholders when they release that information? Isn’t that a crime?

Mainstream propaganda news has never been pro-union. What world do you live in?

Isn't that a crime? You sound like a child. A corporation? Break the law? I've never heard of such a thing! Much of accounting is "open to interpretation."

This country has set up the tax structure to greatly benefit corporations and the rich. That way they can "show losses" to lessen their tax burden while real cash just gets pocketed by the oligarchy.

Gotcha. Every studio/streamer is lying to their shareholders. Shows cost $18 to make! The thousands that watched SAVED BY THE BELL remake on Peacock made the $3 million per episode worth it. No loss there!

People who actual contribute to content should be compensated more than the people who need to get out of the way. And just because some creative talent are highly paid doesn't mean 99% of the rest of them should be underpaid. It's been said a million times but most of the people striking don't make the union minimum for health insurance. Why is your position "so what?" Should people be paid fairly for their work? Less than $26,000 a year is not fair.

It's not propaganda when it's true. Or do you really believe that studios can't afford to pay more?

You keep creating strawmen and false dichotomies, like it's either CEOs take paycuts, or the high-paying writers do. Why not both?

I don't really care if the highest-paid writers end up getting paid less. Realistically, that's what should happen in an industry downturn, along with all the higher paid people. But the competition between studios mean they'd rather spend exorbitant amounts on the big name writers and shaft the normal writers, just so they can promote shows using those big names. It's exactly the same with actors. Nobody is forcing studios to offer those giant paydays.

So if Ryan Murphy makes a few less million the next time a streamer tries to lock him into a contract, due to paying all the other writers and actors a fair wage at minimum, so be it. But Ryan Murphy isn't at fault for taking what they're offering. Again, all your arguments lead back to the studios execs being really bad at their jobs, if they have to exploit workers to run their company.

I think it was in the actors thread that I brought up this irony. That system was dismantled (under anti-trust law) because of the concentration of control it created. Studios then have benefited immensely from having to share/sell their product through others.

Now, that doctrine is no longer in effect, and we are back to discovering that wheel again. Companies wanted to lock it all under their control, from creation to distribution … but now they are “realizing” (remembering) they can make more money with diversified avenues of distribution (i.e., licensing it to other venues).

Google: Paramount Decree and vertical integration

https://deadline.com/2023/07/general...ke-1235448561/

Looks like General Hospital is using scab writers to keep the pipeline of scripts coming.

Apparently Fans are enjoying the new writers Moving plots along. I haven’t watched in years, so maybe I’ll tune back in!

Spending isn't really the issue when it comes to streaming, profits and profit sharing.

First, you have subscription prices. They need to be low enough to entice people to pay them every month, forever. But high enough to pay for everything that needs paying for - and make a profit, too.

Second, you have availability. If things are always there and 'free' for everyone (who has paid their subscription fee), then there's no rush and no easy way of tying a specific entity to an increase in subscribers. So it is either difficult or impossible to tell which shows are bringing in higher percentages of interest over time... unless you go by hours viewed and share profits that way, so:

Third, you have actual views rather than broadcasts. Rather than knowing when something was on and roughly how many people probably watched, you can (in theory) know precisely how many people watched what, when and how often. But since they are paying one negligible subscription fee, trying to pay residuals or royalties based on actual views will benefit an extremely narrow number of people. One imagines that could be why the (in)famous photos of pennies-in-residuals checks exist - if between a few cents and a few dollars are allocated from every subscribers' fee to pay artists, then the Top Watched Show(s) will take the lion's share and everything else will be fractions of nothing. Even fractioning for the Top Viewed shows will swiftly become very little when it's divided between dozens and thousands of individuals.

Fourth, advertising. If there are no - or few - people watching advertisements at all, and increasingly little engagement from those who even see them, then the revenue will be neglible. No million-dollar spots during the Superbowl safely guaranteed to reach tens of millions of viewers at streaming sites.

Have these eps aired yet?

What’s your reasoning? Do you think supporting what General Hospital is doing is a good thing?

Did you really need to ask that?

Up until now, it seemed less explicit. I’m surprised to see him support scabs so overtly.

If that's true, that's going to bite the scabs in the ass in a few weeks. I'm no fan of soap operas, but it's a specific skill to be able to write 5 episodes a week, week after week. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon. Regular shows can wrap up storylines and then, you know, end. For a soap opera, everytime they wrap up a storyline they have to introduce a new one. So the fans may be happy for now, but they're going to almost immediately turn around and ask, "ok, now what?" It's not sustainable to keep coming up with ideas and then resolving them in only a few episodes. I'm guessing the scabs are going to burn out quick, and they'll end up cycling through scabs, and the storylines will devolve into a nonsensical, repetitive mess.

Note that the writers aren't explicitly calling for "profit sharing," which is a whole can of worms. They're asking for better upfront pay and fixed residual rates, which is a lot easier to calculate. It's something studios and streamers already factor in, the rates are just going to be a bit higher.

"Profit sharing" is a scam anyway, due to the creative accounting that goes on in Hollywood. Everyone knows you ask for gross points, not net.

I'd say the actors and writers should ask for revenue sharing instead, so if a show is successful they make a lot more money than they'd get with the residuals, while if the show isn't as successful they don't get paid as much, but it's still affordable for streamers to keep it in their library. However, I suspect this would go over even worse with the studios, since it'd mean they wouldn't make as insane a profit on the really successful shows as they currently are.

Finally, yes, I understand trying to figure out the revenue and profits from a particular show on a subscription service can be tricky, but do you really think the streaming services and studios haven't gotten it figured out by now? Are all the streaming services dropping shows from their service recently just randomly guessing at what shows aren't profitable to them? Disney+ just rolled the dice, and it came up Willow, so they dropped the show without knowing if that was a good idea or not? It's not like ad-free subscription service is even a new idea: HBO has existed for decades, and has been producing shows since the late 80s. There's ways to figure it out, and while they're probably not 100% accurate, they're close enough to be able to run a successful business. And keep in mind that for the actors and writers, it's not necessarily a concern whether the streamer made money on the show or not; all they need to know is what the production companies got paid to deliver the show to the streamer, and what they continue to get paid for keeping it on the streaming service.