(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . WGA strike update [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-06-03 Two weeks ago, Young Sheldon ended Season 6 with two brilliant episodes that are perhaps the best of this show so far and easily the best of the whole Big Bang franchise so far. I laughed and I cried, whereas with The Big Bang Theory I laughed very little and never cried. These two Young Sheldon episodes are a master class in the balance of laughs and dramatic moments, something which Big Bang tried but never quite managed to get right. The Young Sheldon writers have added a lot of depth to characters that were rather one-dimensional on the original show, including Sheldon himself. Could artificial intelligence have written a season finale as emotionally impactful as the Young Sheldon season 6 finale? Maybe. But it couldn’t have created all the episodes that led up to it. From the beginning, Young Sheldon was pretty much assured as many seasons as creator Chuck Lorre wanted to produce. I would have never guessed that a strike of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) could stand in the way of a new season of Young Sheldon starting in September or October. Chuck Lorre’s assets minus liabilities are estimated at $600 million. It’s tough to see him as the David to the studio executives’ Goliath. And yet he is. Can you imagine how much more money he’d have if writers were paid fairly? Or how poor he’d be if instead of creating his own hit shows he wrote several episodes of hit shows created by others? You see this everywhere in arts and entertainment, that people question how much the workers actually doing the work get paid, but don’t question how much the executives get paid. When the musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) went on strike in 2010, there were people saying the musicians should take a pay cut to save the orchestra. Besides the striking musicians, I was the only one saying management should take a pay cut. When I buy a ticket to a DSO concert, it’s because of the musicians. It’s not because of whatever it is that the executives do. When it’s time to sacrifice for the sake of the organization, the burden never falls on the executives. Sometimes, an executive will make a symbolic sacrifice and take a minor pay cut while people are paying attention, but as soon as everyone forgets, it’s back to his previous level of pay if not higher. For example, former Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) Director Graham W. J. Beal, who regarded his excessive compensation as a birthright, despite his several glaring public failures. The small symbolic sacrifice he made in 2008 was quickly recouped with unjustified pay increases he got in 2013 even as he pleaded for a millage to save the DIA. The situation is different in Hollywood, of course. A lot more people go to movies than go to orchestra concerts. And with the success of streaming, they’re really raking in the money. But the writers are not getting to share in that bounty. What is it that movie and television studio executives do all day anyway? They come up with dumb suggestions like that Spock should smoke cigarettes on the bridge of the Enterprise. They cancel our favorite shows if they don’t quite get the ratings the investors’ prospectus promised. They greenlight half-baked ideas. And so on and so forth. Of course the members of the WGA are bringing up the issue of executive compensation. I hope people listen to them with a lot more respect and understanding than the DSO musicians got in 2010. John Horn for the LAist: WGA President Meredith Stiehm has written to shareholders of Netflix and Comcast, the parent of NBC Universal, asking them to vote against approving compensation for its leaders at their upcoming shareholder meetings. The top executives at Comcast made $130 million last year, while the top Netflix executives pocketed $166 million, the WGA says. “Shareholders should send a message to Netflix that if the company could afford to spend $166 million on executive compensation last year, it can afford to pay the estimated $68 million per year that writers are asking for in contract improvements and put an end to the disruptive strike,” Stiehm wrote in the Netflix letter. Oh, but good executives are so hard to find! Please. If they’re really so good, they should have no trouble agreeing to contracts that reward success in the Nielsen ratings and at the box office but penalize failure. The fat cats tried to pit the writers against the directors and the actors. Look at those writers, denying you your paychecks with their silly demands! A couple of weeks ago, it looked like that might actually work. For one thing, directors like being able to change screenplays without having to consult writers. But the directors and the actors seem to have recognized that it’s a divide and conquer tactic. Alissa Wilkinson for Variety: Two other major entertainment guilds, the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), also entered the summer with looming contract expiration dates. Both groups’ agreements with AMPTP, the trade association that represents the industry’s film and TV production companies, end on June 30. A lot could happen between now and then, but the situation is looking dicey. All of that means that come July 1, the studios may be facing a double or even triple strike, in effect shutting Hollywood down completely. However, the WGA are ready to go at it alone if necessary. Gene Maddaus for Variety: Chris Keyser, the co-chair of the Writers Guild of America negotiating committee, said in a video message Friday that the WGA is prepared to fight alone if necessary. Keyser said that the guild, which has been on strike since May 2, is “girded by an alliance” with SAG-AFTRA and the Directors Guild of America. But he promised that even if both guilds reach an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers this month, “We will fight on.” “Any deal that puts this town back to work runs straight through the WGA and there is no way around us,” Keyser said. “We are strong enough — we have always been strong enough — to get the deal we need with writer power alone.” The DGA has been negotiating a contract since May 10, and has only a few days left before SAG-AFTRA is scheduled to begin its talks next Wednesday. The WGA has been sending out messages this week that a DGA deal should not be expected to resolve the writers’ strike. The WGA is keen to avoid a repeat of the 2007-08 strike, when the directors got a deal that became the template for the writers’ agreement. Summer movies are probably safe, but movies for the fall have already been impacted, like Unstoppable with Jharrel Jerome and Jennifer Lopez, which has paused production. The 2023 — 2024 TV season premieres might have to be pushed back. So maybe a bunch of reruns come fall of this year. WWJ-TV, the CBS affiliate here in Detroit, used to air Two and a Half Men reruns at 11 p.m., and later Big Bang Theory reruns. Thanks to Young Sheldon, I started watching some of the Big Bang reruns. A few months ago, WWJ stopped rerunning Big Bang. The show is surely still accessible on Paramount+. Presumably, Chuck Lorre and the rest of the cast and crew of the show get residuals each time the show reruns over the airwaves. But apparently, the writers get diddly-squat for streaming. Given how big streaming has gotten, I would want a piece of that pie. In this round of bargaining, the DGA is primarily focused on getting a better streaming residual formula, which would account for the growth in international subscribers. The WGA has made clear that such a formula would not be enough to resolve its issues, which include a minimum TV staffing level and a viewership-based streaming residual. SAG-AFTRA will also be bargaining for a better streaming residual, but has issues that are unique to actors as well, such as regulations on self-taped auditions and limits on the use of AI-generated performances. The SAG-AFTRA strike vote will be on Monday. Stay tuned. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/3/2170151/-WGA-strike-update Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/