Archive for July, 2008

MEDIA TRENDS ANALYSIS BY SCREEN ACTORS GUILD

July 17th, 2008

Today, SAG distributed a white paper July 15, 2008 that is “is an analysis of trends that have emerged or intensified in the media landscape since the Directors Guild of America negotiated its deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on January 17th, 2008.

In sum, what was once termed “new media” has become a standard as media companies invest heavily in the massive convergence of media and technology, making anything available, anytime, and anywhere.”

Below is SAG’s list of recent ‘New Media’ deals chronicled in the white paper which is located HERE.

Developments

• February 4, 2008—Cablevision offers Universal and Warner Bros. movies on
demand the same day they debut on DVD, as long as viewers purchase the
movies on disc.
• February 20-21, 2008—CBS and NBC begin streaming classic shows from their
libraries online in their entirety.
• February 25, 2008—ABC and Cox Communications begin work on a video on
demand (VOD) system that disables fast-forwarding of commercials.
• March 11, 2008—Apple and Lionsgate agree to allow iTunes users to make
digital copies of selected movies to watch on computer, iPod, iPhone or Apple
TV.
• March 12, 2008—Fox and NBC launch Hulu.com, a website that allows users to
watch movies and TV shows for free with “limited commercial interruptions.”
• April 2, 2008—NBC announces it will produce short, original episodes of The
Office, Chuck and Heroes specifically for the Web, beginning in Summer 2008,
along with an original online-only show called Fears, Secrets & Desires.
• April 13, 2008—Yahoo expands its online video presence and ties to big media
and entertainment by acquiring for $160 million the online video platform Maven
Networks, which has deals with CBS Sports, Sony BMG, News Corp.’s Fox
News and other content providers to help manage, distribute and monetize their
video platforms.
• April 16, 2008—Over ten billion online video views in the U.S. in February
2008, a 66 percent gain versus February 2007.
• April 17, 2008—Networks are acquiring the rights to new content to make the
leap from Internet to television as NBC has signed up the series Gemini Division,
and Channel Five has picked web drama Sofia’s Diary.
• April 28, 2008— Warner Bros. TV Group says it is resurrecting its WB Network
TV brand as an ad-supported video network that will offer a mix of new
programming and old series aimed at women viewers.
• April 30, 2008—Sezmi opens up a new set-top box with one terabyte of storage,
a broadband Internet connection, and an antenna.
Confidential Page 3 of 4
• April 30, 2008—Time Warner says it will release all of its DVD titles on VOD
on a day-and-date basis this year.
• May 1, 2008—Hulu launches a YouTube channel of its own, bringing NBC back
to YouTube.
• May 1, 2008—iTunes goes “day and date” with DVDs with new releases and
catalog titles available from 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner
Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures
Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studio.
• May 2, 2008—Disney-ABC Television Group begins research in collaboration
with Nielsen Co. regarding inserting multiple commercials into ad breaks for
primetime series on its broadband player.
• May 7, 2008—NBC streams free, full episodes of The Office & 30 Rock to
iPhones in unprotected Quicktime format.
• March 13, 2008 – Bob Iger states at a New York media conference that he
expects the Disney to pull in $1 billion in digital revenue this year.
• May 15, 2008—CBS purchases CNET Networks making it one of the 10 most
popular Internet companies in the United States, with a combined 54 million
unique users per month, and approximately 200 million users worldwide.
• May 19, 2008—NetFlix Web-to-TV set-top box debuts with a price tag of $99.
• May 28, 2008—Blockbuster Inc. announces its intended launch of in-store kiosks
that will allow consumers to download movies onto portable devices in two
minutes.
• June 1, 2008—CBS says it will unveil a new video player that has new ad
targeting (using a content and advertising engine CBS picked up in its acquisition
of Last.fm), content sharing and HD.
• June 2, 2008—A study suggests marketers should adopt VOD sales as VOD ads
are more effective than broadcast ads. The reason is viewers are more likely to
recall a spot seen in an on-demand context than they would an ad on linear TV.
• June 3, 2008—Sony PlayStation launches an original, unscripted monthly series.
• June 4, 2008—CBS will stream its shows online at Yahoo TV, running pre-roll
advertisements.
• June 5, 2008—All BBC TV channels are being prepared to be made available
online.
• June 10, 2008—Disney to stream movies online, offering them for free based on
an ad-supported revenue model.
• June 10, 2008—HBO buys stake in Funny or Die, signing an additional
development deal as well.
• June 10, 2008—NetFlix set-top boxes sell out in less than three weeks.
Confidential Page 4 of 4
• June 11, 2008— GoTV Networks, which produces and syndicates original and
partner programming via mobile and broadband technologies, enters into a
strategic partnership with talent agency CESD to combine GoTV’s production
studio with CESD’s talent roster.
• June 12, 2008—Warner Bros. Television Group announces that its content will
be distributed through branded channels on Dailymotion, Joost, Sling Media,
TiVo and Veoh Networks.
• June 16, 2008—Weeds delivers 2.5 million Apple downloads.
• June 18, 2008—YouTube experiments with full-length video, enabling YouTube
to offer more ads per view and other ad opportunities.
• June 19, 2008—Fox airs Rescue Me five-minute minisodes on FX and the Web
in order to rekindle audience interest in the show due to the hiatus during the
WGA strike. The minisodes don’t connect to the new season.
• June 23, 2008—British commercial broadcast giant ITV reports a surge in its
Internet activities with a four-fold rise since its launch in video catch-up, which
allows viewers to watch shows they’ve missed that week since its launch.
• June 24, 2008—ABC syndicates content to Veoh and moves its prime time to the
Web.
• June 27, 2008—Sony to create new movie download service directly to TV that
utilizes the Bravia Internet Link.
• June 30, 2008—Google tests new ad-based content monetization model with Seth
MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy and uses its AdSense advertising
system to syndicate the program to thousands of Web sites that are predetermined
to be visited by the target audience.
• July 15, 2008—Netflix and Microsoft announce a deal that will allow Netflix
subscribers to stream 10,000 movies and TV shows to Microsoft’s Xbox consoles
for viewing on television sets, beginning in Fall 2008. The deal doubles the
number of movies and shows available on Xbox for download.

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Posted in AMPTP, Actors, Alan Rosenberg, New Media, Producers, Residuals, SAG, Strike, Tommy G. Kendrick

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NOW Media not NEW Media – Letter From SAG

July 17th, 2008

Screen Actors Guild Logo

The following letter members received from SAG today reinforces some of the points I was making in my earlier post:
BIG PRODUCER$ MONETIZE YOUTUBE CLIP$

July 17, 2008

It’s Not New Media – It’s NOW Media

Dear Screen Actors Guild Member,

I want to tell you why your national negotiating committee has not accepted the June 30 offer put across the table by the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers (AMPTP.) For one reason and one reason only: It’s not a good offer. It doesn’t address enough of your priorities (as outlined in past SAG Contract 2008 Reports), particularly in new media.

The AMPTP ‘s current offer to SAG, which is nearly the same for new media as the deals that the DGA, WGA and AFTRA accepted, has come to be called “the template.” Some of you may be wondering why we don’t just agree to the template established by the other unions.

The template doesn’t protect actors, and while we may be the last union to come to the table, we still have the obligation to address the issues that are most important to you. We have had the extra time to effectively assess the impact of rapid technological and marketplace changes, and after careful analysis, we don’t believe the template works for SAG members.

In the six months since the Directors Guild of America reached a deal with the AMPTP, the landscape in digital media has dramatically shifted. The seven global conglomerates that own the motion picture studios and television networks are so confident in digital media prospects, that they are putting up huge dollars to fast track their technology deals.

The DGA and WGA represent writers and directors, not actors. Their resolution of the new media issues may work for them, but they don’t address your specific needs. The DGA and WGA agreed to allow producers to make new media productions entirely non-union, at the producers’ option, for projects below budgets of $15,000 per minute (effectively, almost all new media productions for the foreseeable future.)

Most union directors and writers don’t have to worry about large non-union pools of trained and talented competitors, but union actors do. Non-union principal and background actors already compete for your jobs, especially outside of New York and California. It makes no sense for SAG to agree to allow the studios and networks to exacerbate our problem by giving them a pass to produce entirely non-union under a SAG union contract. We are a union, and our mission and obligation to all of our members nationwide is to promote union jobs.

Another example of how the new media template negatively impacts actors is its effect on residuals. The AMPTP’s recent offer to SAG doesn’t include residuals for programs made for new media and streamed again on ad-supported new media platforms. So a program originally made for ABC.com could be available for re-viewing on ABC.com, or any other ad-supported Internet outlet, as often as possible and forever with no residuals, no matter how much money is generated or how many times it is shown. (There is one minor exception if a program is made for and re-run on a pay platform like iTunes and the budget is more than $25,000 per minute.)

Just as we have shown we can work successfully with low-budget filmmakers, we are flexible and can accommodate fledgling new media productions under SAG contracts. We have offered to base made-for new media residuals on a percentage of revenue with no fixed obligation. If there is no money generated, no residuals are paid. But if revenue is generated from programs available over time, actors should receive residual payments. So far, management’s negotiators have rejected SAG’s reasonable solution, while management’s proposal could mean the beginning of the end of residuals.

What some among our employers – the major global media conglomerates — insist on terming “new media” it’s really “now media.” It is urgent, instant and immediate. That’s why achieving a fair compensation formula now, in all forms of media, and confirming jurisdiction from the first dollar of the production budget, are core objectives of the SAG national negotiating committee. [Click here to downlink the full version of our “Now Media” white paper including the index of recent new media entertainment developments.]

Your national negotiating committee takes its responsibility very seriously. We want to make a deal as soon as possible, but we don’t want to make a deal that hurts actors. No deal is better than a bad deal that allows non-union productions by our employers and snuffs out residuals for projects made for and rerun on new media platforms. We don’t need to experiment on the backs of actors. Our real world and practical experience has taught us how to provide union benefits and protections in low budget productions.

Management’s resistance is frustrating but we have to be patient. The stakes are too high to concede jurisdiction and residuals for programs made for new media. That future is now and, if we ignore it, it will pass actors by and this generation and future generations of actors will never recover.

Thank you for your understanding and your solidarity.

Doug Allen

National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator

P.S. For anyone who thinks that is a hypothetical and distant future, this is what the business magazine Forbes said in a June 2008 article about YouTube:

“The vast majority of YouTube’s library is…babies laughing and dogs splashing in wading pools… Pricing for display advertising next to user-generated content has collapsed. Rates on sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube have fallen 45% since February (’08), to 18 cents per thousand page views, according to digital analytics outfit PubMatic. Most of the momentum now, says Chris B. Allen, director of video innovation at media buyer Starcom is for ads within full episodes run on the TV network sites, such as NBC and Fox’s Hulu, ABC.com and CBS.com. It’s a format advertisers understand.”

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Posted in AFTRA, AMPTP, Actors, Alan Rosenberg, Directors, Film Distribution, Filmmakers, Hollywood, Hollywood Reporter, New Media, Residuals, SAG

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BIG PRODUCER$ Monetize YouTube Clip$

July 17th, 2008

While we wait for a resolution of the current contract ‘negotiations’ between SAG and the AMPTP, a few show biz reports give a look under the tent at why SAG is so concerned about issues like clip usage and residuals from new media. As an example, look at the deal announced this week between YouTube and Lionsgate as reported in the trades Daily Variety and Hollywood Reporter:

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Rather than fight its fans, Lionsgate has made a deal with YouTube aimed at satisfying — and monetizing — the people who post clips of its films, like “Dirty Dancing,” which receive millions of views.

The studio will make excerpts from several hundred of its film and TV productions available on a branded YouTube channel that will allow users to share, embed, upload and mash up the clips.

Nothing to get excited about. Or is it? What does this move portend for the actors, writers, directors whose work is featured in these clips?

…”Jordan Hoffner, YouTube’s head of premium content partnerships, said his company is in talks to strike similar arrangements with other studios.

Pact follows other clip deals, but is noteworthy for its user flexibility at a time when Viacom is embroiled in a $1 billion copyright infringement suit with YouTube parent Google.”The deal also could highlight the contentious issue of what digital residuals might be owed to actors and other profit participants.

“Revenue generated with any piece of Lionsgate content is recorded and documented,” said Curt Marvis, Lionsgate’s president of digital media. “Splits are still to be determined, but there will be a trail of knowledge. I think that’s still being discussed (with guilds)…

…The deal has similarities to one struck between YouTube and CBS nearly two years ago, just before Google announced its acquisition of YouTube. A few months ago, Hulu, the joint venture of News Corp. and NBC Universal, loosened its restrictions on YouTube file-sharing, allowing short clips with embedded Hulu ads to stream on a branded YouTube channel.

However, the Lionsgate partnership calls for a heretofore unseen spirit of generosity in its user permissions.

“(The partnership) grew out of discussions about claiming — the process of getting content off YouTube,” Marvis said. “But if there’s an audience for our content, it was like, ‘Wait a minute. Let’s not put our heads in the sands here. Let’s give them what they want and get revenue from it.’”

Let’s not put our heads in the sand, indeed. For a group of people in the communication business, it seems to me that SAG has done a fairly poor job of informing the public of the moves being made by producers and studios on an almost daily basis that are directly related to the key issues in this contract negotiation.

Unfortunately, the horse is already out of the barn on this round of negotiations and it doesn’t appear likely that issues of clip use and residual income will be decided in a manner that will significantly benefit actors going forward. Based on prior experience, if we don’t ‘get it now’ we likely won’t be getting it at all.

The producers have, it appears, once again been successful in getting SAG to accept a contract that has terms that will make it very difficult for the average working actor to make a living….certainly not if he/she is counting on residual income streams.

It has become clear that this round of negotiations was seized by the AMPTP as the moment in time to roll back or even eliminate actors residual income streams as we have come to know them. We are at a time of changing technology that has opened the door to this move by producers.

Perhaps more of the Hollywood elite would object to the AMPTP tactics if we would refer to them as BIG MEDIA, BIG PRODUCER$, BIG ENTERTAINMENT or the BIG AMPTP, or BIG STUDIO$. It doesn’t have quite the ring of BIG OIL or BIG CORPORATIONS but somehow some of the same group of stars who constantly rail about BIG EVERYTHING don’t seem to see the studios and producers in the same light.

Could it be because many of these BIG STARS also have BIG FINANCIAL INTERESTS in BIG STUDIOS and BIG PRODUCTION COMPANIES? I guess not. These people have far too much integrity to do something only the Bushes and Cheneyes of the world would do. Right?

I’ll think about that when the next round of residual checks comes in and I deposit those checks for $10 and $20. I just don’t see how the producers can afford to pay those kind of prices for shows running on cable TV. I mean, nobody watches cable TV. Do they?

I’ll sure be glad when that infant technology grow$ up.

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Posted in AFTRA, AMPTP, Actors, Daily Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Producers, Residuals, SAG, Strike, Tommy G. Kendrick, WGA, Writers

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SAG AND AMPTP – SIDEBAR SECRETS

July 16th, 2008

SAG 2008 Contract Negotiations
July 16, 2008

Dear Screen Actors Guild Member:

Small contingents of the negotiating committees for Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers met for two hours today at AMPTP headquarters in Sherman Oaks. Both parties agreed to keep the contents of today’s meeting confidential.

We will continue to update you as information is available.

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Posted in AFTRA, AMPTP, Actors, Alan Rosenberg, Producers, Residuals, SAG, Strike

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SIDEBAR: SAG and AMPTP MEET TODAY…BUT TO WHAT END

July 16th, 2008

In what is being termed a ’sidebar’ meeting, an off the record meeting with an unspecified agenda, the AMPTP has agreed to meet with SAG negotiators today to discuss the current contract stalemate. AMPTP insists that the offer on the table is in fact their ‘last best final’ offer and that there will be no movement off that offer on their part.

SAG has continued to insist that the two sides are indeed still negotiating. Apparently SAG leaders are the only party to this drama that thinks negotiating can continue if only one side is willing to participate.

Daily Variety’s Dave McNary continues his coverage in what has become a predictable anti-SAG slant with the following:

In a sign that SAG may be edging toward closing a feature-primetime deal, negotiators for the guild and the majors have agreed to a meeting today.

SAG, which sought the get-together, is playing it close to the vest as to the purpose of the meeting — officially a “sidebar” that’s off the record and will involve a small group from each side.

But the session could help negotiators hammer out a few face-saving tweaks — mostly in non-economic areas — that would enable SAG leaders to support the final offer or at least send it to members without trashing it. The session could also lead to bringing in Disney chief Robert Iger and News Corp. president Peter Chernin to close the deal or enlisting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recently said he’d be willing to intervene as a mediator if asked.

Still, no one from the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers will be surprised if SAG continues to stall. SAG’s public posture for the past two weeks has been to blast the final offer — while insisting it hasn’t actually rejected the deal — and propose counteroffers in hopes that the congloms will budge from their oft-repeated position that the June 30 final offer won’t be revised.

The SAG reaction to McNary’s AMPTP-friendly reporting is discussed at Deadline Hollywood Daily:

SAG Denies Variety’s Latest Fabrication

EXCLUSIVE: The Screen Actors Guild is furious over Variety’s erroneous report tonight that the guild “may agree to the majors’ request to send out their final offer to the 120,000 guild members at the end of July.” I’m told by one insider, “It’s bullshit, especially the headline.” That started out “SAG to send offer to members” until it was changed after complaints to the equally misleading “SAG may send offer to it’s members”. Said another source, “Absolutely not true at this time. Irresponsible reporting.” The article also makes false assertions that SAG has stalled the negotiations — ridiculous since it’s now the AMPTP’s turn to respond to SAG’s counter-offer. This is yet another example of the trade writer Dave McNary making up a story about the guild negotiations that has no basis in reality, just like he did repeatedly during the WGA strike.

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Posted in AFTRA, AMPTP, Actors, Alan Rosenberg, Daily Variety, Producers, SAG, Strike

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Brushing Up On the SAG vs AMPTP Lexicon

July 15th, 2008

Reading all the entertainment coverage of the stalemate between SAG and the AMPTP, it occurred to me that it might be helpful to have handy the definitions for certain terms recur frequently in said coverage.

So, for what it’s worth, here are some terms that you’ll see often if you follow this saga:

Residuals – Also known as lifeblood to an actor. Future compensation that actors, writers and directors receive when their faces, voices, words and/or concepts are utilized to generate a continuing income stream for producers. The basic concept is that if my face/voice is being used to sell your soap for some period of time beyond the date that I filmed/taped your program (or commercial…but that’s a different contract), I should be compensated for that continuing contribution to the producer’s income. Because the actual number of work days for most creative types is limited, they rely on residuals as a significant portion of their total income. The fact that residual income has plummeted from traditional sources (TV reruns for example) has been a major issue in the current negotiations, particularly with regard to residual income from DVD sales and anticipated revenues from the internet and other new media outlets.

Final Offer – This is it. We have no more to give. What? You’ll accept what? Let us think about it and we’ll get back to you.

Last Best Final Offer – This is it. Really. We have no more to give. Seriously. Don’t bother making a counter proposal because we’re not going to consider it. You’ll accept what? Let us think about it and we’ll get back to you. (slight pause) We thought about it. No. Take it or leave it. And if you don’t take it we may have to declare an impasse.

Impasse – What happens when two sides in a contract dispute talk to each like to warring tribes that each speak a language the other doesn’t understand. While the pretense of negotiation is underway, the reality is that neither side has a position that is acceptable to the other. This phase usually begins at the very moment of expiration of an existing contract. Legally, if the producers declare that negotiations have stopped and the process is at an impasse, they can implement all or some of the terms of its final offer.

de facto impasse - A term created by producers and entertainment industry reporters to throw more cold water on the whole process of negotiation for a new collective bargaining agreement and scare everyone into believing that a strike is imminent.

Strike Authorization Vote – A tactic that, under the right circumstances can result in a last best final offer becoming a final offer and then a new round of talks. This tactic will only work if there is a reasonable expectation that the membership will actually authorize the strike action…which explains the lack of a strike authorization vote in the context of this present contract negotiation.

Strike – A lose, lose situation where both sides in a financial struggle agree to put themselves and countless innocent bystanders into a financial hole from which they may never recover.

de facto Strike – A term created by producers and entertainment industry reporters to throw more cold water on the whole process of negotiation for a new collective bargaining agreement.

Solidarity - An archaic notion that creative types including actors, writers and directors would stand together in negotiations with producers. This quaint notion was popular at an earlier time when the creative types understood that producers would pay them nothing if they could get the creatives to agree. The creatives found that by working together they could achieve more favorable wages and working conditions. Internal power struggles have supplanted solidarity in importance in the modern era.

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Posted in AFTRA, AMPTP, Actors, Producers, Residuals, SAG

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Hot As Hellboy

July 13th, 2008

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Posted in Box Office, Box Office Mojo, Filmmakers, Filmmaking, Hollywood

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SAG Offers Compromise and Asks AMPTP To Do Likewise

July 11th, 2008

Today the AMPTP and SAG negotiators met for several hours as the two sides squared off in yet another round in a seemingly interminable contract negotiation. While most major news sources are reporting that SAG simply told the AMPTP ‘no’ to their final offer today,

Hollywood Reporter:

The studios Thursday said that SAG officially rejected their “final offer.” The guild says they didn’t.

“The refusal of SAG’s Hollywood leadership to accept this offer is the latest in a series of actions by SAG leaders that puts labor peace at risk,” the AMPTP said in a strongly worded statement after Thursday’s talks broke off. The producers say the guild was “unreasonably” seeking more than other unions and they’re not interested in further negotiations.

Daily Variety:

SAG officially rejects final offer
Guild probably won’t strike as studios go to work
By DAVE MCNARY

SAG’s still not ready to close a deal with the majors — signaling that the thesps’ contract stalemate will linger on into the late summer.

Guild on Thursday officially rejected the final offer by the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers on grounds that the pact falls short in such areas as new media and DVD residuals, along with product integration and force majeure protections.

Deadline Hollywood Daily has a different take on today’s meeting:

Today, SAG made a full counter-proposal to the Big Media cartel negotiating group’s supposed “last best final” offer put on the table June 30th. I’m told SAG and the AMPTP “got closer together today” because the union worked hard to “remove some of the differences” and “made a number of moves” in the AMPTP’s direction. “SAG is now engaging the AMPTP in the process of doing the same thing,” I’m told. Specifically, SAG moved closer on some economic issues, New Media issues, and some other bargaining issues not previously addressed.

In turn, SAG told the AMPTP that it had to move closer on these issues, too….

…SAG’s national board meets on July 24th and the guild made it clear to the AMPTP that SAG “would like to have something ready between now and then that our board would be interested in unilterally recommending to the membership.”

And so it goes. SAG has a national board meeting scheduled for July 24th. That date now appears to be as close to a ‘date certain’ as we’ve seen for some resolution to this mess. SAG leaders want to have a deal to present to the board on the 24th.

The AMPTP meanwhile continues to tout the fact the the DGA, WGA and AFTRA have already settled for this deal as proof that SAG should just take the same deal. If that were so, then why were there four or even three separate negotiations. Why didn’t AMPTP just distribute the ‘deal’ to each union at the same time and say ‘take it or leave it’? The fact is that each union does have similar but also different issues that need to be negotiated. So it is reasonable that SAG has issues to resolved in a different manner than did the DGA, WGA or even AFTRA.

It’s time for the AMPTP to put production back in gear by offering some compromise that will allow the SAG leadership to take an affirmable offer to the national board on July 24th.

According to Deadline Hollywood Daily, during the WGA negotiations the AMPTP offered no less than 10 ‘last best final’ offers. If that is true, then the AMPTP should cut to the chase, respond to today’s reported compromise offer from SAG and get the deal done.

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Posted in AFTRA, AMPTP, Actors, SAG, Strike, Tommy G. Kendrick

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If Only Alan Rosenberg and Roberta Reardon Were Married…

July 9th, 2008

If only SAG President Alan Rosenberg and AFTRA President Roberta Reardon were married… they could get a divorce. As it stands, it looks like a long, chilly separation is in the works for the two actor’s unions they represent.

If anyone is still confused about why SAG and AFTRA conducted the TV/Theatrical contract negotiations separately for the first time in almost thirty years, listen up. KCRW, the NPR affiliate out of Santa Monica, CA has a regular show called The Business, described thusly on the KCRW site:

Hosted by Claude Brodesser-Akner, The Business looks deep inside the business of entertainment. A half-hour of thoughtful and irreverent dialogue with Hollywood’s top deal-makers, filmmakers, moguls, artists and agents, The Business will clue you in on who’s making pop culture pop and what’s keeping Hollywood’s Blackberries juicy.

It’s a good thing this is a duel between a male and a female because if this were a same sex confrontation, these two would be throwing punches and pulling hair. Hummm….maybe there’s a reality series here.

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Posted in AFTRA, Actors, Alan Rosenberg, Roberta Reardon, SAG, Strike

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SAG GAMBLE FAILS – AFTRA RATIFIES CONTRACT

July 8th, 2008

The failure of SAGs strategy of derailing the agreement betweent AFTRA and the AMPTP was verified tonight. According to Integrity Voting Systems in Everett, Wash, AFTRA members ratified the agreement with a 62% ‘yes’ vote. That of course means that 38% of the voting membership was opposed to the deal. The total number of votes was not noted in press releases.

SAG has until Thursday to determine its next move – call for a strike authorization vote, accept AMPTPs final offer that is now on the table or ???

For everyone holding their breath over the threat of a strike, start breathing. It’s NOT going to happen. First, could SAG get a 75% strike authorization vote? Not likely before the AFTRA ratification, seemingly impossible now. There would seem to be zero chance that Rosenberg would now opt to officially poll SAG members for strike authorization. SAG has taken enough body blows for one negotiation. Time to move on and regroup.

While SAG looks like the big loser in this fight, it is really the SAG actors who have lost if this deal turns out to be a replay of the ‘don’t kill an infant technology’ argument that swayed SAG over twenty years ago when we were negotiating cable rates and residuals. Time will tell.

Below are statements by AFTRA and SAG president’s Roberta Reardon and Alan Rosenberg, respectively:

FROM AFTRA:

LOS ANGELES (July 8, 2008) “Today’s vote reflects the ability of AFTRA members to recognize a solid contract when they see it. Despite an unprecedented disinformation campaign aimed at interfering with our ratification process, a majority of members ultimately focused on what mattered—the obvious merits of a labor agreement that contains substantial gains for every category of performer in both traditional and new media.

“Clearly, this was not a typical ratification process, and it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise. To those of us for whom labor solidarity is more than just a slogan, the idea that politically-motivated leaders of one union would use their members’ dues to attack another union is unconscionable. Working people do not benefit when their union is under attack.

“For the sake of our members, organized labor must be united, especially in a world of ever-increasing corporate consolidation. Given this, AFTRA leadership is eager to focus on several important initiatives in the months to come: Building on the suggestion of our valued supporters, we will seek to organize a summit of top actors, performers, and union leaders to engage in a thoughtful, constructive discussion of how we can achieve unity among performers—and ultimately, if feasible, merger of the performers’ unions.

“Given that working men and women accomplish more when we work together with trust and mutual respect, we will ask the leadership of the AFL-CIO AEMI ICC unions, the DGA, WGA and others in the labor community to come together well in advance of the next round of contract negotiations to explore ways of maximizing the leverage of entertainment industry workers.

“Finally, I intend to promptly review with our National elected leadership and the Presidents of all AFTRA Locals the conditions needed to restore trust to re-establish joint bargaining on our respective commercials contracts.

“I sincerely appreciate the committed work of the negotiating committee, elected leaders, the labor community, and individual activist members of AFTRA who worked tirelessly and publicly to secure this solid contract for television industry performers. I am especially grateful for the support of many joint members of SAG and AFTRA—such as those in Chicago, Florida, Houston, Nashville, New York, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle—who displayed courage in the face of potential retribution, by taking a stand against disunity with the power of truth and solidarity.”

Negotiations with the AMPTP over the AFTRA Primetime TV contract began on May 7. They concluded on May 28 with a tentative agreement that was unanimously recommended for approval by AFTRA’s 31-member negotiating committee. The AFTRA National Board of Directors overwhelmingly approved the primetime television contract on June 7 and recommended the deal to members, which was ratified today. The new contract is effective from July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2011.

From SAG’s Alan Rosenberg:

Los Angeles, July 8, 2008 — “Clearly many Screen Actors Guild members responded to our education and outreach campaign and voted against the inadequate AFTRA agreement. We knew AFTRA would appeal to its many AFTRA-only members, who are news people, sportscasters and DJs, to pass the tentative agreement covering acting jobs. In its materials, AFTRA focused that appeal on the importance of actor members’ increased contributions to help fund its broadcast members’ pension and health benefits.

Screen Actors Guild is the actors union with more than 95% of the work under this contract, jurisdiction over all motion pictures, and over 4 billion dollars in member earnings under the SAG agreement over just the last three years.

We thank the over 4,500 proud SAG members from all over this country who have signed the “SAG Solidarity Statement,” in support of their negotiators. The Screen Actors Guild national negotiating committee remains committed to our core institutional mission to improve the lives of actors and their families.

We will continue to address the issues of importance to actors that AFTRA left on the table and we remain committed to achieving a fair contract for SAG actors.”

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Posted in AFTRA, AMPTP, Actors, Producers, Residuals, SAG, SAG Membership, Strike, WGA

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