The WGA wisely invited key Showrunners and hyphenates to be part of the process. Now they are pushing the DGA deal as a model to get the writers back to work

By Alex Ben Block

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) – 1/21/2008 – The same group of top TV show runners and industry hyphenates who added credibility, muscle and enhanced unity during the Writers Guild strike are now also going to be a force pushing within the guild for a contract modeled after the DGA deal. That is one reason we believe the WGA strike will be over in two weeks, and the Academy Awards will proceed as usual.

These Showrunners — the people who run day-to-day operations of a TV show, often with titles like executive producer, producer-writer or some combination of hyphenates — are under tremendous personal and professional pressure to get back to work before their well paid careers go through the corporate shredder.

So far layoffs at the studios have not included those with shows currently on the air, but the companies have threatened to deepen the cuts if the strike goes on another month. That gives these hard working scribes a lot of incentive to get back to work. Among a few we spoke with in the past few days all feel the DGA terms on new media are not perfect, but they are something they can live with. The consensus was a prolonged strike would not produce significantly better terms equal to what they would lose.

This small sample was adamant about another thing. They do not want the guild to continue the strike over demands to organize reality TV and animation jurisdiction, to be able to force arbitration over residuals with a third party in deals with vertically integrated businesses or the right to stage sympathy strikes when other unions strike. Those were among the things that the AMPTP found most objectionable and eliminating those items during the informal talks will make possible the ultimate agreement.

One show runner also told me it was untrue that the writers did not want smaller groups to engage in informal talks to avoid the big formal meetings where both sides tend to grandstand or posture instead of really talk and listen. This show runner told me the writers always wanted these kind of small meetings to kick start the process, but it was management that refused. Now it is management making the offer to do just that.

In a sign of how the top Showrunners feel, John Wells, the respected Executive Producer and writer on “E.R.” and other shows, put out a letter over the weekend that has been widely circulated among the strike blogs, and is in the Monday reports by the trades. “I think the DGA deal is good. Very good.” wrote Wells. “For writers, for directors, for the future.”

Wells calls the DGA pact, which he says was only possible because of the writer’s strike, “a historic deal,” adding: “We’ve won. The strike was necessary to win it and I can only assume our Negotiating Committee will be sitting down with the AMPTP by early next week to resolve these last, final issues.”

Expected to represent writers in the informal talks will be WGA West President Patric Verrone, negotiating committee chair John Bowman and WGA Executive Director David Young, who has been a frequent target of criticism by management since the strike began.

For management, the lead on opening informal talks has been taken by Peter Chernin, President of News Corp. (which owns Fox), who kicked things off by contacting top guild leaders shortly after the DGA deal was announced. Joining Chernin, it is expected, will be Disney’s President Robert Iger, who was also involved in talks with directors. Not far away will be CBS’s Leslie Moonves, Warner’s Barry Meyer and NBC Universal’s Jeff Zucker.

There have been a lot of rumors about various groups of powerful filmmakers, or Showrunners, getting together behind the scenes. Whatever the truth, this group has the power to act as a swing vote to get the guild hardliners to accept a reasonable deal.

Screenwriter Craig Mazin, whose blog Artful Writer has gotten a lot of attention since the strike began, has started a campaign to get his fellow WGA members to accept a contract based on the DGA deal. In an email, Mazin encourages members to write or contact the leadership and tell them to make a deal.

Among the Showrunners on the WGA’s negotiating committee are Neal Baer of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit;” Marc Cherry of “Desperate Housewives;” Carlton Cuse of “Lost;” David A. Goodman of “Family Guy;” Carol Mendelsohn of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation;” and Shawn Ryan of “The Shield.” There are also hyphenates such as writer and director Bill Condon (“Dreamgirls”); writer-director Stephen Gaghan (“Traffic”); as well as producer-directors Marc Norman and Robin Schiff.

The reason the 2007-08 negotiating committee was loaded up with Showrunners and hyphenates dates back to the 1988 strike. In that year, the guild did not include these powerful players, and many of them became part of a dissenting splinter group that helped force an early end to the strike. So to prepare for the 2007 strike, the guild made it a point to stock up on these important players.

Then as now Showrunners are the ones who are most anxious to get back to work, and that will have an enormous impact on ending the current strike. Variety reports in its story for Monday that: “Scribes have demonstrated impressive unity during the strike, but in recent weeks, prominent screenwriters and some Showrunners have held private gatherings to voice concerns that the WGA’s hard-line stance and fiery rhetoric are getting in the way of efforts to end the strike. If WGA leaders don’t make progress in the contract talks in the wake of the DGA deal, it’s likely the Writers Guild will face an “uprising” among many of its most successful members, industry insiders said.”

Then again not everyone believes that the Showrunners or other groups are plotting anything. On the blog United Hollywood, Oscar-winning writer Paul Haggis, says he is asked about this all the time, but doesn’t actually know any writers who have such plans. He suggests the whole thing is overblown.

“So here is where my mind started to go: Could this reporting have anything to do with a well organized and very expensive PR campaign to convince WGA members that we should shut up and be grateful for what we got?” asks Haggis.

The reality is that even if there is no organized group of dissenters as rose up in 1988, it is in the interests of the Showrunners and hyphenates to get back to work. That is why this dynamic will take place not outside the guild but within, where these important working writers are now well placed.

There are still a few issues that the writers must address which were not concerns of the directors. They will argue over “separate rights” on new media (when a character created by a writer jumps to another media, such as videogames or comic books or onto a web site); and jurisdiction over derivative uses beyond TV or movies, such as related material that appears only on the Internet, or blogs tied to shows or movies.

However, these don’t appear to be a serious stumbling block to a deal. The only things that can derail a settlement would be personality issues between the negotiators, demands by the guild to make those non-economic issues a deal breaker; or last minute ego plays by either writers or management.

However with the Showrunners and hyphenates on hand to help push the guild forward; and management finally in the mood to make a deal; there is an opportunity here to get a fair contract for writers, which management can live with, that will allow everyone to get back to work and at least on big hits, share in the back end rewards.

So even though the DGA deal doesn’t pay as much for stream video or downloads as the writers hoped, it is more than many expected from the WGA, especially the concession on paying residuals out of the distributors gross for the first time instead of the smaller producers gross.

Here are a points made by Wells in his message to his fellow writers:

“This DGA deal doubles our much hated home video/DVD. A rate we have tried to improve on for over twenty-two years without success. Twenty-two years. As recently as a few weeks ago the Companies were still saying they would “never, ever” raise this rate. One company exec told me we were “out of our fucking minds” if we thought we would ever get an increase in the DVD rate for EST. This is a huge, historic victory for everyone.”

“The definition of high budget is also very encouraging: $15,000.00 per minute, $300,000.00 per episode, or $500,000.00 per series — whichever is lowest. To put this into perspective, QUARTERLIFE, the web series that Herskovitz/Zwick are producing is being made for more than three times this amount and would clearly be covered employment, as would all of the mobisodes and webisodes made for existing shows so far. Another big win for all of us.”

“This has not been widely reported, but the DGA was able to get the Companies to reconfirm the 2001 Internet Side-letter. What does the 2001 Internet Side-letter say? Well, in 2001 we were able to get the Companies to agree that all rentals occurring over the Internet would be paid at 1.2% of 100%. The recent announcement of the Itunes deal and the Netflix deal will clearly fall under the 2001 Side-letter and be paid at this much higher rate (four times or more the current average homevideo/DVD rate). As would any Internet “On Demand” models that emerge. This is very important.”

“Also largely unreported is the DGA’s new language on financial reporting and auditing of these new markets. In an unprecedented move, the Companies negotiated with the DGA to allow the DGA full access to all of their un-redacted financial records and contracts in new media during the term of this new deal. This has never happened before. It will allow the DGA to analyze whether the terms of this new deal are working and if the revenues are being properly reported. This is another extraordinary aspect of this deal and a cause for celebration.”

Finally Wells gives justifiably gives the writers credit: “While the DGA richly deserves our thanks and appreciation for negotiating a terrific deal that will serve as a template for all three creative Guilds, none of this would have been possible without the blood, sweat and sacrifice of WGA members during this very effective strike. The Companies made a deal they didn’t want to make because of our resolve. They clearly understood how important these issues were for our members and stepped up to resolve them.”

So with powerful forces coalescing to bring the strike to an end, this deal can be done in the next two weeks. If it falls apart for some reason, however, the strike could go on for months with little prospect of a much greater reward. Remember that all of these guild deals have most favored nation’s clauses. That means if the writers did win additional concession, management would have to go back and give more to the directors, and match that in upcoming talks with actors. That just isn’t going to happen.

So if things move swiftly, it may be in time to save the Grammy’s and certainly would be in time to save the Oscars. That means the whole town can get back to work.

A final note: If a final lesson is needed about who writes the movies that win Oscars, the WGA East plans a demonstration on Tuesday, the day Oscar nominations are announced, at which some 30 past award winners will picket lines with their awards in hand, according to an announcement, “to send a message to the industry (that) awards are nice, but we’d rather the writers get a fair contract.”

And now the time is at hand to do just that, if one side or the other doesn’t screw it up. We can have a deal and the grand daddy of awards show can go on.