The Wall Street Journal-20080112-Hot Topic- TV- Interrupted
Return to: The_Wall_Street_Journal-20080112
Hot Topic: TV, Interrupted
'American Gladiators" returned to TV last weekend. "American Idol" premieres next week. With the Writers Guild on strike, TV viewers may be in for a "reality" check they would just as soon live without as the studios push more such programming into the living room.
What's a couch potato to do?
As luck would have it, the writers are on strike just as the ultimate reality show is playing daily on TV screens everywhere. It's called the American Presidential Campaign, which in a world of perfect logic would indeed play in primetime, right after "American Gladiators" and before "American Idol." Just this past week, all the news outlets predicted that Hillary Clinton was going to be voted off the island in New Hampshire. But the plucky Senator proved them wrong. This was thrilling drama. The day before, the plot line turned on Hillary's tears, an event analyzed as closely as the latest twist in "Lost." Then, just before bedtime, Bill Clinton could entertain the country with fairytales; the "Obama fairytale" was the season premier. Besides, who needs writers when we've got Mike Huckabee?
Also, this wonderful new series can't be canceled, no matter how far the candidates' poll ratings go into the dumpster. It'll be on all the way to November. That gives the gladiators in this strike -- the writers and the producers -- time to figure out exactly what exactly they're fighting about.
Billions of dollars are at stake, at least potentially, for both sides. No question, this is real money. But much of the argument between the writers and producers is over an unknown -- how much revenue is going to pour forth from the so-called New Media in the years ahead.
The writers feel they've been shortchanged for years on DVD "residuals" -- the payments they get when someone buys a disc. Now they want to make sure that doesn't happen again when audiences are streaming content online that the writers helped create. They want a big piece of that future revenue stream. Problem is, no one has the foggiest idea of its size. The producers maintain it's too early to know how valuable or profitable online distribution will be, and fear getting locked into a bad deal.
It's said that most Americans support the writers in this strike. We like writers, too. But how can anyone know what percentage of revenues the writers "deserve" -- whether zero (the producers' opening bid) or 2.5% (the writers' demand) or something in between? Ignorance is at the heart of the dispute, since no one knows what these royalties are worth -- yet. Historically, our economy has thrived on flexibility and suffered when sectors have locked in long-term obligations that later proved unsupportable. Ask Detroit.
Still, whatever Hollywood's politics, it has never been our impression that the players there were obtuse about economic reality. We suspect the writers and producers will do a deal well before next August, when their audiences would be Tivo'ing the Democratic Convention in Denver.
(See related letter: "Letters to the Editor: Fair Value for Writers" -- WSJ January 17, 2008)
