November 13, 2007

It's So Obvious

Dan and other aspiring writer friends and I are getting more wound up about the WGA strike.

How can the moguls and producers get so happy about the certainty of current and future profits from online content (and surely crow to their stockholders to this effect) and yet plead that the impact of internet content is still uncertain?

Disney's honcho says $1.5 billion of its annual revenue comes from digital. Sumner Redstone says "Viacom will double its revenues this year from digital." Rupert Murdoch refers to the digital revolution as an era of "golden opportunities."

But when the writers say "Hey, can we please have our fair share, as well?" They're all "but the impact of new media is uncertain."

Come on.

5 comments:

Timothy Carter said...

Bravo! Great video, summarized nicely by you. Yes, it's a fact of the world that people do not like to pay writers. What's up with that? I hope every one of the striking writers gets what they want out of the strike. It's not like the moguls don't have the cash to pay them.

Elizabeth McQuern said...

Timothy, I'm sure as a writer, you're paying attention to this stuff, too. Can you believe it? To publicly crow about huge profits from digital media, and then, when writers ask for their fair share for their contributions to it, to say "the future of these communications channels are uncertain?" Utter, and plain BULL.

Anonymous said...

The only tv show that has currently caught my interest is "Dexter" and the the series is based on a book that author has already wrote two sequels for and is currently writing a fourth book.

Norman Mailer recently died and it occurred to me that I haven't read any of his books. Researching him led me to other authors I'd like to read also.

All this and the irony that the first tv shows to go black are late night comedy and soap operas lead me think the public won't be upset about the WGA going on strike for quite awhile. I hope they have large savings accounts.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, there's been a lot of great videos coming out of United Hollywood's blog, but if anything should make fellow artists angry it's this one. Nothing rallies the troops like insanely rich people giggling sheepishly or bragging loudly about the money they don't want to share.

Elizabeth McQuern said...

This will be an interesting period of adjustment, for sure. To me, it's totally obvious that the writers are only asking for what's fair, but that doesn't mean this might not drag out for a really long time and get really nasty.