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Passing it along...

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The concessions that the WGA writers are asking for are not that much -- a slightly higher percentage of DVD receipts, and minor royalties off new media like Internet downloads. I don't want to downplay the contributions of all the other people involved in the production of a TV show, and perhaps this is just my inner writer talking, but I really see the writing staff as the backbone of TV and movies; without them, there are no stories.

If the networks can whip up a bunch of unscripted reality TV to replace the scripted shows, and if the fans are willing to accept that and watch the cheaply produced reality shows in place of well-written, carefully plotted shows like SPN, everyone loses -- the TV writers and the fans.

A lot of people don't watch reality TV anyway (and I'm one of them). But for those on the fence, the very least we can do to encourage a quick end to the strike and to get our favorite shows back into production is to show the networks that we aren't willing to accept cheap substitutes. We want our shows back and we shouldn't settle for anything less.

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Last I heard, even the demand for a slightly higher percentage of the DVD sales had been put aside, and the WGA were willing to go for just actually getting paid for "new media"...

I'm so very, very confused by the whole idea of these people being able to argue with a straight face that the internet is too new, and so it doesn't make sense to reimburse creators when their product is sold over the net instead of in physical form.

Of course, I can't do anything to help from over here, but... I'm just going to sit here and boggle for a while. I still haven't gotten over the fact that there seem to be a lot of people who think striking is somehow abominable, and that the writers don't deserve anything at all. Um. It's times like this I'm extra glad to be living in a boring little socialist country. ^^;;

Last I heard, even the demand for a slightly higher percentage of the DVD sales had been put aside, and the WGA were willing to go for just actually getting paid for "new media"...

"Top guild sources tell me they were “deliberately duped” by the moguls in a backchannel deal to bring the guild back to the bargaining table Sunday. They say the lure was a promise by two Big Media CEOs -- Peter Chernin and Les Moonves -- that, if the writers gave up their DVD residual demands, then the producers would respond by improving the formula on the central sticking issue of Internet downloads for movies and television." (http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/deals-lies-backchannelling-why-this-is-a-bigger-mess-now-than-ever-before/)

But then the producers backtracked and so did the WGA.

Thank you! I've been trying to keep up with everything that's going on, but there's just so much information... I'd managed to miss this. Good to know!

Why am I not surprised that Les "I Hate Star Trek" Moonves is a part of this? And that he would try a trick like that?

What I never quite understand is why the writers working on the reality tv shows aren't in the same union as the other tv writers in the first place.

Because the "writers" of reality tv aren't really tv writers in the traditional sense, I think. Reality television is by definition unscripted; any "writing" that takes place is probably considered promotional or something more than as content.

The only reality tv I watched for a while was Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and the show seemed to me as if there was a fair amount of planning involved what would happen when and into the structure, that may not be like writing dialog in a script but is not just writing slogans or something either.

It may well be planned, but that's not writing. Planning and structuring is undoubtedly done by producers and their support people, not people who are members of a writers' union. This is one reason that reality tv is so cheap to produce - the people involved are generally people who would normally be involved in producing any show (producers, continuity people, etc.) or people who have competed to appear as participants. No actors, no writers.

Well ... that's only sort of true. "Reality" shows do have writers, as does the TV news; it's just that in neither case does the WGA consider them "real" writers for guild purposes. The WGA also doesn't cover writers on animated shows, even though writers on shows like "Simpsons" do just as much planning as for a traditional scripted show. The WGA's membership decisions are politically motivated, as well; though in this case it may bite them in the ass.

Hmm. I agree that writers of animated shows should be covered - that really should be a no-brainer. I don't think that reality show "writers" should be, quite honestly. I know there is a lot of effort and thought put into designing the situations, the challenges, etc., but if we're to consider that as "writing," we're really opening ourselves up to having to consider lots of other things as "writing" that may serve to weaken the overall position of the union and its members, financially and otherwise.

Also, most of the content of reality shows is supposed to be unscripted stuff that just happens or that contestant/participants say of their own accord, and if there really are "writers" making a lot of it up, then the producers are engaging in outright fraud. In that case, the creators of the shows should be confronted by legal means for misleading the public. If it's proven definitively that reality shows are in fact more scripted that is generally admitted, then I think that the WGA should be covering the people doing the scripting.

However, I do see that by not covering writers of such shows, the WGA is making it possible for producers to stink up the airwaves with more and more of them much more cheaply than if they were using "scripted" programming.

As for writers of news programs, I do think they should be protected by a union, but it should be a journalistic union as opposed to lumping them in with the folks who write entertainment programming. There are different challenges and requirements and (should be, at least) different ethical standards that apply to news writing, and I don't think that they should be treated exactly like people who write sitcoms and dramas.

I should apologize, however, for neither having all my facts straight nor making some of my points clearly. :)

Addendum: Simpsons is a very bad example to use there; apparently its writers actually are covered under the WGA! But a lot of animated shows aren't; there's already talk of using more animation to fill the gap. (It's very depressing that the networks aren't talking in terms of "how can we meet the writers' demands?" but rather "how can we replace these pesky writers until they get tired of making a fuss and go away?")

It's all rather disheartening to realize that the tremendous hardships and sacrifices of the people who built our labor unions have come to be so trivialized and nearly forgotten. Most people tend to either take unions (and the benefits they win for their members) for granted or sneer at unions as relics of a time when such groups were needed. I fear that enough people won't wake up to realize that they are still relevant until working people lose so much ground to the greed of the non-labor interests that it will be an uphill battle just to get back some things that had been achieved years ago.

Hey, I'm up for saying "no" to reality tv all the time. (Not that it makes much difference what I do, since I (and my family) can't really watch stuff as it's aired anyway.)

Hear, hear. I always tend to support the writers because not only could no one else involved in scripted television actually produce anything without them, they actually strike or threaten to pretty seldom, so one gets the idea that they have really good cause when that happens. Once I found out about the nasty trick the producers played on them last Sunday, I was even more in their corner.

There's not much I can do from the UK but I've posted the linky etc in my LJ too. I can't stand reality TV and won't watch it anyway (okay, aside from my guilty pleasure of ANTM which I like solely for seeing how they do the hair/make-up/photoshoots). What particularly annoys me about this crap, cheap, nasty form of television is that it is a misnomer.. these shows have nothing to do with reality. They take people - usually people so far from "normal" that it's laughable (cos really, by definition anyone who wants to be on these shows shouldn't be on them!) - and put them into a contrived situation and manipulate them to create drama and conflict.

What reality TV should be is showing us the real lives of people whose lives, whose work, whose existence is interesting because it is different from our own. The Deadliest Catch is what I consider to be reality TV. This Big I'm a Celebrity Brother Bachelor Survivor crap is just talentless, midless junk and it's killing decent scripted drama. With any luck this strike, as well as getting the writers a fair deal, will precipitate a mighty backlash against reality TV when people (I can hope, can't I?) get sick of being flooded with it by the cynical networks and use their off button.

/rant :D

Heh. I'm definitely with you on "reality" TV; I can't stand those shows anyway, and I've never watched an episode of one. So this is not exactly a boycott that's hard for me to carry out. *g*

Heh. I'm actually insanely proud of the fact that I have never watched a single second of any of these programs! :D

Actually, I tell a lie... I've kind of watched Big Brother in that I've watched the episode of Dr Who (9th Dr) where the Dr ends up in a future version of the Big Brother house! :lol:

My opinion on "reality" TV.

I will pass the word along. But I do wonder if we are sort preaching to the choir as it were. I many most of the real fans I know view "reality" TV as anything from a "guilty pleasure" to evil incarnate. Not watching them is not going to be much of a sacrifice.

But I do wonder if we are sort preaching to the choir as it were.

I think you're right, but it still can't hurt to pass it along. After all, I don't know how many people read my journal; maybe there are a few who haven't really thought about it, who'll pass it along to a few others.

I e-mailed my sister an hour ago telling her about the strike and boycott. Her and her family have gotten into a few reality TV shows here and there. Hopefully I convinced her not to when the flood does come.

The only reality shows I liked were the nanny ones (Nanny 911, Super Nanny), in part because you could actually learn something from those (Ex. ignoring your kids does not make them go away, neither does screaming your head off) and in larger part because I was waiting for another show to come on.

But the thing about reality TV shows, even the ones you can learn from, is that each new season is nothing more than a regurgitation of the one before. Doesn't matter that there's new people, settings, competitions, etc, it's still the same-old, same old. It would surprise me to learn if shows like Survivor had the same rabid, loyal fan-base as shows like SPN or SGA. I'm not saying that there aren't such fans for reality TV shows, but probably not as many as there are for SPN.

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