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Who won the Writers' Strike?
Here is one answer, here is another. Here are 2,503 other answers. I believe "We still don't know" is the correct answer. I do know I can expect to see 13 of a planned 16 episodes of Lost, which, given their long-arching plot lines, is probably a welfare improvement all around. Battlestar Galactica should do OK. In other words, I won the strike.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 12, 2008 at 08:16 AM in Television | Permalink
Comments
Nobody won. Or rather, neither of the two participants in the slow-mo game of chicken won...
Posted by: neil at Feb 12, 2008 9:02:35 AM
I would like to know our hosts' reaction to the strike itself - have they been cheering the writers or booing them? Myself, I've been cheering them but then my politics is on the left and a union success -- even such an odd one as this -- is something I feel happy about. I find I expect TC and AT to not be cheering on the writers, but given their general pro-little-guiy and yet contra-collective opinions I'm not sure.
My guess, for what it's worth: TC supports the writers, AT doesn't. Apologies if I missed posts on this.
Posted by: tom s. at Feb 12, 2008 9:17:58 AM
Oops I contradicted myself - I wish someone had an editable comment engine. I'll go with my second "prediction" - TC supporting, AT not.
Posted by: tom s. at Feb 12, 2008 9:25:14 AM
Why exactly would one root for either side in a negotiation between business entities? What emotional satisfaction could that possibly provide?
Posted by: Dave at Feb 12, 2008 9:46:07 AM
Well, just to be romantic, because the writers aren't business entities, they're people. And by your logic, why would one cheer for either side in the Super Bowl or the FA Cup?
Posted by: tom s. at Feb 12, 2008 10:15:44 AM
the writers union isn't a business entity?
Posted by: shawn at Feb 12, 2008 10:20:15 AM
Unions are made up of people, corporations are made up of faceless evil barons. You didn't know that?
Posted by: Jarick at Feb 12, 2008 10:49:13 AM
If I write a book or a screenplay and some guy pays me 2.5% of the budget at 20MUSD thats half a million bucks! My risk is merely time and the price of the computer. I am not building the show or providing the distribution channels. So when I'm done with that piece of work I can go back to my little shack and write another one, or go to my other job. Writing is a skill and those who get paid for it should know that there are millions of people who want what they have...to be paid for writing a screened project.
On that note...why should a company have to continue to pay for anything that is manufactured? If the writers want back end, then write away for free and see what happens. As a producer myself I am now looking for non WGA projects for 100% buyout as the disbursements and accounting behind a film will cost as much as the film itself.
Get a real job writers!
Posted by: david geertz at Feb 12, 2008 10:51:00 AM
why should a company have to continue to pay for anything that is manufactured? If the writers want back end, then write away for free and see what happens. As a producer myself I am now looking for non WGA projects for 100% buyout as the disbursements and accounting behind a film will cost as much as the film itself.
Because the item manufactured makes consistent revenues. This actually is better for everyone involved because it better aligns the cost associated with the creation with the revenue created. Paying a lump sum would increase the risk on the producer side since the lack of residuals would increase the upfront cost.
Writing is a skill and those who get paid for it should know that there are millions of people who want what they have...to be paid for writing a screened project.
You could say the same about pro athletes, investment bankers and traders. Some people are better at it and get paid more for it. Deal with it. Or are markets not ok when you don't like the participants?
Posted by: Mo at Feb 12, 2008 11:23:14 AM
shawn, jarick. If I read you right, you see a contradiction between the Writers' Union being a business entity and individual writers being people. Obviously there is no contradiction: the people voting today are people. Have I missed something?
Posted by: tom s. at Feb 12, 2008 12:06:42 PM
the writers don't have pointed mustaches that they coil between their fingers, whilst cackling about the pretty maiden they've tied to the tracks?
Tom...i'm really asking a question. It's my understanding that the writer's union truly is a business. You've chosen to put a pretty, belabored, crushed-under-the-heel-of-evil-studios face on it, but it truly *is* a business, that collects dues from its members and works to extend the reach of its corporatism. So, we've ended up with one business against another. If you want to put a face on the studios, it's every shareholder, or board member...
Posted by: shawn at Feb 12, 2008 1:34:00 PM
Both sides 'won.' The strike was settled through representative negotiation (a very old process) and both sides made the deal they thought was the best fit. "Won" makes it sound like an auction, which this is nothing like. Negotiations drive commerce every day.
My question is-- What will happen to the commercial mass entertainment industry now that it stopped production at a time when millions of consumers have alternative media to consume and even help produce online? Like baseball, Broadway plays, and hockey -- what happens to the market after strikes?
Posted by: The other Eric at Feb 12, 2008 2:44:11 PM
I loathe most "reality tv". Should I blame the writer's strike, or market forces?
Posted by: Linkt at Feb 12, 2008 3:36:26 PM
Why wasn't a strike avoidable? Did producers misjudge that badly, or did writers settle for that much less? Everything leads me to believe the former, but it would be interesting to be privy to the negotiations.
Posted by: Lord at Feb 12, 2008 4:42:30 PM
shawn - I think you are projecting - I don't see that I said anything that could be interpreted as moustache-twirlers vs. noble-sons-of-the-soil. Just that I was cheering for the writers.
Some people see a union as an independent business that contracts to represent a client (the bargaining unit) and others see a union as a mechanism for employees to work together as a group. Those of us who are pro-union generally live in the hope that a good union is a democratic expression of the collective will of its members. Whether it actually is or not varies hugely from place to place of course, and I have no insight into the writers' union. Still, in that hope I cheer them on.
Down with top-hatted, cigar-chomping studio executives!
Posted by: tom s. at Feb 12, 2008 4:56:30 PM
tom s.:
"(...) because the writers aren't business entities, they're people. And by your logic, why would one cheer for either side in the Super Bowl or the FA Cup?"
You actually can cheer for a side in a contest without trying to convince yourself that the reason you're doing it is because the side you're cheering for is in some inherent way superior to all the other sides involved. When I cheer for the Polish soccer MNT, I don't do it because I think they're "people" as opposed to all the other national teams that are merely "sports entities." I do it because I happen to be Polish, and so are they; I realize there is nothing rational about my desire to cheer for them.
Posted by: pmn at Feb 12, 2008 4:59:11 PM
david geertz: Good question. Along that line, why should consumers have to pay for things that are already manufactured? A copy of a movie has zero marginal cost. It seems silly that I should pay my neighbor for a copy of his DVD.
Posted by: Anonymous at Feb 12, 2008 5:58:32 PM
Gah. I meant, "silly that I should pay the movie studio for a copy of my neighbor's DVD."
Posted by: Anonymous at Feb 12, 2008 6:02:02 PM
I don't care who won the strike because I don't watch TV
Posted by: Area resident Jonathan Green at Feb 12, 2008 9:57:27 PM
I had wondered whether the writers' strike was still on. If it was, I wondered whether they would be disappointed that I didn't know it was. I was quite impressed over the past three months by how apparently expendable the writers are for significant periods of time.
Incidentally, how many consumers of writer labor are there? Is any single buyer buying more than about 15% of the total? This is one of those markets where it looks to me as though it would have a good chance of being fairly competitive on both sides, and yet it seems to have been cartelized on both sides. Is there a good reason to have a bilateral monopoly in this situation? What genuinely *surprises* me about these situations is finding out that the buyers of labor are *allowed* to bargain as a single unit; I know that labor suppliers are given a special exemption from anti-trust law, but why aren't the buyers simply left each separately facing a monopoly to which they pay monopoly prices for reduced output?
Posted by: dWj at Feb 13, 2008 9:43:40 AM
