Unless I’m mistaken, the quote the AMPTP used is plagiarized from a West Wing episode where WGA writer, Aaron Sorkin had the President Bartlet character riff on the adage during a campaign speech.

401k is a mighty thing.

Another thing the SEC doesn’t like you to lie on your reports…so what is it, AMPTP?

The AMPTP need to clean house in their executive suites and put their house in order…they know rule…the creators of the products shares the profit…if they get paid, then we all get paid.

Everybody shares the risk…as it been said before, residuals are deferred payments on future profits. But unlike the free money the Producers make (i.e stock options) we have to trust their lying numbers but unforturnately Corporate Greed has gotten so outrageous they want everything.

So everything of nothing leaves nothing, so who’s laughing now?

I hope Wall Street and the Advertisers understand a little how this thing work…without the writers, directors, actors and the BTL there is no product of value created. This is a well run collaborate process that should respect all parts…unfortunately some in the AMPTP and others forgot that.

Rupert Murdoch need to stop talking on TV and start negotiate with the writers reps…as he was one of those hardline CEOs trying to break the unions and they thought the WGA would be a easy target.

Revenues obtained in the initial market of release no longer cover the costs of production, much less distribution and marketing. There is no such thing as supplemental or ancillary or secondary market any longer and hasn’t been for years. All windows and media are needed for the vast majority of productions just to recoup initial costs, much less break even or make a profit.

HA!

Also, their math reminds me of a quote from ‘Naked Gun.’ “He has a 50/50 chance of survival. But there’s only a 7% chance of that.”

So AMPTP is lying again.
What did they think, that none of us are smart enough to go to the Labor Dept’s. site & find out the facts!

Oh, and one comment said “phased” when I think they meant “fazed.” Or maybe they meant it in Star Trek terms…

Anyone who happens to knows a writer and a surgeon knows exactly what a fallacy this is!

Truly hilarious! I have read and viewed many terrific and funny strike-related creations by my fellow writers, and this is one of the best. You’re all so talented out there it’s an inspiration!

It’s hard for an outsider like me to know what kinds of contract terms and rates really are reasonable, and I think AMTP representatives have every right to try to drive a hard bargain and make sure any increases in writer compensation are tied to real increases in Web revenue.

And, sure, yes, the writers have a huge stake in the survival and transformation of the production system run by AMTP members. AMTP members may let a fair amount of dreck through and bury some gold, but they increase the value of TV and film writing by filtering out most of the worst dreck.

But I think one reason that fans are supporting the WGA is that we see that this strike is as much about us as it is about the WGA members. Many of us already do Web work, and we see that our employers have unrealistic ideas about how much Web content we can produce, or how many e-mails we can answer in an hour, or how many Web orders we can process per day, or how many hours per day we can be expected to work.

Web work is real work and has to be paid for with real money, period.

Right now, it looks as if the AMTP is saying that a year’s worth of Web redistribution rights has a value of only $250, compared with a $20,000 value for a year’s worth of TV rebroadcast rights. In other words, that Web work is worth 1.25% of TV work.

The AMTP also has said a 15-minute made-for-the-Web script should be worth just $1,300. If 1 minute of show time means 1 page of script, and a writer can produce a decent page (and do the administrative and marketing work associated with that page) every 4 hours, that translates into an hourly rate of about $21.67.

That’s probably less than the true minimum wage for college-educated Los Angeles and New York residents with clean criminal records, and it’s probably the equivalent of a full-time staffer earning just $10.88 per hour, which is worse than many fast food restaurant workers in big cities get paid.

And if the AMTP can do that to writers who write for glamorous shows like “The Office,” goodness knows what the employers of us fans can do to frumpy old us.

Certainly, compensation has to reflect actual revenue and actual expenses. But, as billionaires such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and George Soros will tell you, letting employers destroy middle-class workers simply to pump up executive benefits and profits to absurd, robber-baron levels is bad for everyone in the long run. Serfs who live in huts and get paid in sacks of barley do not go to movies, or buy advertisers’ products.

maybe Fabiano & Lehane are secretly in support of unions in general and the WGA in particular, and their bizarre contribution to the WGA’s cause is to provide really poor PR services to the AMPTP! way to undermine from within! in which case we should be *thanking* them for doing the craptastic job they’re doing.

right. or maybe they’re just incompetent jerks.

Unfortunately, the DGA is not made up of a majority of directors. Thus, neither does a majority of their membership even GET residuals (directly). Ergo a majority of their membership doesn’t give a CRAP about the residual issue or the $250 figure that’s been offered. So you missed it with your comment. Well, actually almost.

Your larger point IS right, however. The DGA does have a stake. The majority of the DGA membership may not care about residuals, but they care about minimum pay and pension & health contributions. And if another more important (but less talked about) proposal of the WGA’s doesn’t make it - aka getting union jurisdiction over ORIGINAL content for the web - the DGA will lose its minimums and pension & health contributions once “the internet is the sole medium of distributing series programming” (as you wrote).

So you hear that DGA members? That is our common ground. That jurisdiction is crucial to all out unions survival in the coming digital age. Make sure your leaders fight for it.

MORE.

What if the DGA demands MORE than the WGA is asking for?

Wouldn’t that be the shocker of all time for the AMPTP?

Does the AMPTP seriously believe that directors (who are ALL ABOUT technology, and new media) are going to accept something like $250 for a residual on an hour of network TV they have directed once the internet is the sole medium of distributing series programming?

Really? Because, directors don’t have high self-esteem? Directors don’t understand the potential of new technologies? Directors don’t like money?

Has anyone at the AMPTP met any directors?