USA: Hollywood writers engaged in a class struggle with top-tier talent and studio executives

Record ID: 338575

  • Title: USA: Hollywood writers engaged in a class struggle with top-tier talent and studio executives
  • Date: 21st November 2007
  • Summary: MYERS GREETING FAMILY
  • Embargoed: 6th December 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA98TX41IEGGBZB8XK9ER8JHZNL
  • Story Text: As the Hollywood writers' strike concludes its second week, guild members as well as studio bosses are digging in for a long fight. That means a big drop in income for several thousand working writers, plus more lean times for thousands more.
    Outside Raleigh Studios in Los Angeles, where the hit TV drama "Ugly Betty" is filmed, Writers' Guild members donned red shirts and walked a picket line in the hot California sunshine. Among those on hand: two of the show's writer-producers, Dawn Dekeyser and Henry Myers, who have laid down their laptops in order to support guild negotiations.

    "Our staff writers -- this is really hitting them the hardest first, and our writer's assistants," explained Dekeyser, who has been leading the group of picketers as strike captain.
    "And myself, I'm like mid-level, and I'm being affected by it immediately. I'm a single working mother and trying to support my own household. So we're all taking a hit with this but we feel like it's definitely worth it in the long run."
    Both Myers and Dekeyser are some of the luckiest writers in Hollywood, as a staff position on a popular network show can mean a sizeable paycheque.
    But in an interview with Reuters at his home, just a few miles away from the studio, Myers explained why he supports the strike despite the financial sacrifices.

    "I'm doing it because I think that the residual system that we have is really important," Myers said.
    "You know, I've been .. I've had times in my life where I had little money, I was in between jobs, I've had payments from jobs that I had done previously come in, and they really helped out. I know other people who have been in that situation."
    The current dispute between writers and studio execs centers on residual payments for so-called "new media" distribution: web downloads, online streaming as well as other technologies that have yet to emerge.
    Twenty years ago, negotiators for the Guild agreed to a contract that denied them a part of the revenues from home video sales. That has since proven to be a devastating error, and is a mistake that the current generation of negotiators are determined to avoid.
    Even so, the economics of today's entertainment industry are fraught with new complications. Case in point: the lucrative revenue-sharing agreements in the feature film business that have steadily eroded studio profit margins.
    David Bloom, Associate Dean at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, says that writers are just one of the groups vying for a shrinking pot of cash.
    "It's a smaller pie than it would be otherwise because the Tom Cruises of the world, the Steven Spielbergs of the world, are able to command wonderful deals that make them a great deal of money on the front end because they sell a lot of tickets," he added.
    For now, writers and industry executives have a potentially bruising fight ahead. Some analysts have predicted that a strike could last until March or April, since it's not clear which side has more to lose.
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