Add Writers’ Strike: Eric Bogosian’s Theory
Jan 3rd, 2008 by John Stodder
Actor and writer Eric Bogosian has an insightful take on why the AMPTP is taking such a hard line against the WGA that I’ve seen yet. He e-mailed his hypothesis to top entertainment industry reporter Nikke Finke, and it’s up on her blog.
Bogosian says, in essence, that entertainment producers are worried about how much it will cost them if they agree to a percentage-based residual that would apply to numbers that can’t be fudged.
Internet clicks, streams and downloads are counted precisely. Precise numbers are not part of the Hollywood studio culture. For decades, tricky Hollywood accounting has been the bane of all profit participants in the movie, TV and music businesses.
Hide-the-pea is much harder to play when everyone can count clicks. When talking profits with actors and writers, creative studio accountants have found ways to hide revenues and double-count expenses to make even the biggest hits look unprofitable. They will have the opposite incentive in dealing with pay-per-click advertisers. They will want to show them high numbers. Most of all, the numbers will have to be strictly auditable. Unlike actors and writers, advertisers don’t tolerate studio double-talk, especially when hard numbers are available.
The producers see much bigger profits coming from the Internet than ever before, says Bogosian, but they want to keep as much of it as possible:
In the new Internet age, the producers / studios / networks will be able to circumvent the international “middlemen” — national television stations and distributors in foreign territories. With the Internet they will be able to distribute directly to the local consumers. Furthermore, they will no longer need to distribute only to the largest markets (Germany, Italy, etc.) but will be able to distribute to every single person with internet access on the globe (Antarctica, for example).
Ergo: Much greater profits (for example, a product like Coca Cola can advertise by being tacked onto an international distribution of say, the tv program Friends, or a download of American Gangster that goes directly to every person with a computer on the planet.) And Coke will be able to count every hit. Potentially, so could the WGA.
Much greater profits and much greater exact accounting. Studio / networks want one and not the other. Understandably, since they haven’t been sharing in any real way in the first place…This gives them a good reason to attempt to break the union(s). It’s not irrational. It’s just business.
To me, Bogosian’s argument validates the position that the WGA should jettison the distracting side issues that the producers call “jurisdictional” and focus on the main prize at stake — an honest cut of an expanding pie.
Read the whole thing…the comments, too.
(Note: Bogosian expressed himself with numbered bullet points. Since my excerpt started with his #3 point, I decided it would be less confusing to leave out his numbers entirely. Ms. Finke preserves them on her blog, so if you want to see all six of his numbers, go there.)
(Aside to would-be writers: Did you miss Bogosian’s numbering system? Were unnumbered paragraphs any less clear? Ah, didn’t think so.)
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