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Greed 2.0
The future of media is going to be rich — or poor
When they're talking to bankers, media moguls can barely contain their enthusiasm about the digital future. The Internet is creating a vast new marketplace for content, they say, and we're making aggressive investments to take advantage of it. Then, when they talk to their employees, the mood changes. Suddenly, that same Internet is creating challenges, and the only way to adapt is to cut costs.
Nowhere is this corporate doublespeak more apparent than in Hollywood, which has been paralyzed by a writers' strike since early November. There are a few issues on the table, and they get complicated quickly, but the basic disconnect is easy to understand. Network and studio executives seem to believe that the Internet will present opportunities for them to make money, though they're not exactly sure how. Until they figure that out, they want writers to accept lower pay for new media projects, much as they accepted a fairly low share of DVD revenues when that technology was new.
Writers, in turn, realize just how profitable DVDs turned out to be, and how hard it can be for a union to get back anything it gives up. So they're reluctant to make the same kind of deal again. After all, if the Internet presents such wondrous opportunities, how can management doubt that they'll pay off profitably?
The stakes are high for both sides. The last writers' strike took place in 1988, in a world without reality television, DVD players, or the Internet. (Television was in color, but people still watched sitcoms.) This time, the networks can fill their schedules with reality shows. But by doing so, they risk losing even more of their audience to the Internet.
At the end of November, the writers rejected the studios' "New Economic Partnership," which sounds disconcertingly like some kind of Soviet initiative. It would have paid far less for new media than for old; just as important, it would not have given the Writers Guild jurisdiction over online content, which would erode the union's power. On Friday night, talks collapsed completely.
Nowhere is this corporate doublespeak more apparent than in Hollywood, which has been paralyzed by a writers' strike since early November. There are a few issues on the table, and they get complicated quickly, but the basic disconnect is easy to understand. Network and studio executives seem to believe that the Internet will present opportunities for them to make money, though they're not exactly sure how. Until they figure that out, they want writers to accept lower pay for new media projects, much as they accepted a fairly low share of DVD revenues when that technology was new.
Writers, in turn, realize just how profitable DVDs turned out to be, and how hard it can be for a union to get back anything it gives up. So they're reluctant to make the same kind of deal again. After all, if the Internet presents such wondrous opportunities, how can management doubt that they'll pay off profitably?
The stakes are high for both sides. The last writers' strike took place in 1988, in a world without reality television, DVD players, or the Internet. (Television was in color, but people still watched sitcoms.) This time, the networks can fill their schedules with reality shows. But by doing so, they risk losing even more of their audience to the Internet.
At the end of November, the writers rejected the studios' "New Economic Partnership," which sounds disconcertingly like some kind of Soviet initiative. It would have paid far less for new media than for old; just as important, it would not have given the Writers Guild jurisdiction over online content, which would erode the union's power. On Friday night, talks collapsed completely.
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