By William Booth and Lisa de Moraes
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 5 -- Thousands of writers closed their laptops Monday to march on picket lines in Hollywood and New York, vowing not to pen another joke or script until the film and TV industry offer payment for shows available over the Internet.
The first casualties of the stoppage by the 12,000 members of the Writers Guild of America are the late-night talk shows. NBC's Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien, CBS's David Letterman and Craig Ferguson and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel decided to air reruns, as did Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
Late-night junkies of the celebrity interview and top-10 lists, the political lampoon and fake news might quickly feel the pangs of withdrawal, because those shows are heavily reliant on writers. The last strike by writers, in 1988, lasted about five months and reduced Johnny Carson to looking at Ed McMahon's snapshots.
At the NBC studio in Burbank, Leno showed up at the picket line aboard his Harley-Davidson motorcycle to deliver a box of doughnuts to the striking writers. After making the obligatory joke about doughy scribblers and their love of pastry products, Leno told reporters: "I've been working with these people for 20 years. Without them, I'm not funny. I'm a dead man without them."
At the gates of Fox Studios, James L. Brooks, executive producer of "The Simpsons," marched carrying a red-and-black placard that read "ON STRIKE." "I hope it's not a long one," Brooks said of the stoppage. "A long strike could mean permanent injuries. It could hurt a lot of people and it could hurt the business."
Reality and competition shows, such as ABC's highly rated "Dancing With the Stars," will not be directly affected by the strike, nor will news programs and sports. Eight of the 10 top-rated shows on prime time are penned by guild writers, however, so any lengthy strike will hurt the bottom lines of the media companies.
"If this goes on, ratings will go down and advertisers will ask where the audiences have gone," said Tom Hertz, a writer, show runner and creator of the CBS sitcom "Rules of Engagement."
Hertz, like many of the writers interviewed Monday, was feeling righteous and ready to fight for his residuals. "I love writing TV shows, but I'm 111 percent behind the strike. If I have to sell my house and move into a small apartment, I'll do it."
In Los Angeles, writers took their protests to sidewalks in front of 15 film and television studios in town as they chanted slogans and urged motorists to honk their horns. Union officials hailed the first day turnout as a strong show of unity and will.
"It's like herding cats, getting writers together and organized. But this has galvanized us," said Steve Skrovan, a longtime writer for "Everybody Loves Raymond" who now works on the Fox show " 'Til Death." Skrovan was serving as a strike captain on the Sony lot where his show is shot.
In New York, the unionized scribes waved signs at NBC headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Among them was Tina Fey, a star and creator of NBC's "30 Rock."
Like Brooks, Fey is what Hollywood calls a "hyphenate," such as a writer-producer, who is an amalgam of both labor and management. Fey explained that she would continue to act in and produce "30 Rock," but would do no writing or rewriting of scripts.
Like many shows, "30 Rock" has enough finished scripts to keep fresh programs on the air until January. Brooks said "The Simpsons" has completed enough new shows to continue at least until February, but he added that the animated comedy's writing team typically hones jokes until the last minute.
"Our future shows are at various stages of completion, but from now on, we will not do any writing or rewriting. None," said Al Jean, a veteran show runner (the term has come to mean creative director) and writer of "The Simpsons" who marched outside Fox with Brooks.
While the late-night talk shows -- as well as NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher" -- are the first to go into reruns, right behind them will be the daytime talk shows, such as "Ellen," and the soap operas, which will quickly run out of scripts. "The Oprah Winfrey Show" doesn't employ union writers and will continue uninterrupted.
Because the studios have been accumulating screenplays in anticipation of a strike, film production should continue for months. The movies nearing completion will be released according to schedule through the end of the year.
What is the fight all about? Mostly money. A three-year contract between producers and writers expired last week without a new deal. The writers wanted to increase their percentage payment for DVDs, which are more profitable for the studios than box office receipts. A writer earns about 3 or 4 cents on a typical $20 DVD. Consumers will buy $16.4 billion worth of DVDs this year, according to Adams Media Research. Originally, the writers wanted to double their DVD take, but took the proposal off the table on Sunday in an attempt, they said, to further the contract negotiations. The talks broke down and no further negotiations have been scheduled.
The writers also want a percentage of the sale of their work as it is downloaded or streamed from the Internet into computers, cellular phones and portable devices such as the MP3 player. The studios have generated relatively little cash from so-called new media -- $158 million from selling movies online and about $194 million from selling TV shows over the Web. But most analysts, as well as the striking writers, assume that is where the future lies. The studios argue that it is too early to know how much money they can make from offering their products over the Internet.
"We're just looking for our percent of the pie," said Bill Martin, a writer for the ABC comedy "Cavemen" who picketed the Sony lot. " . . . We're not asking for a flat fee. We're asking for a percentage."
Martin joked that his young children don't even know what a broadcast network is, but they do know about TiVo. "They push a button and they download 'SpongeBob.' They wouldn't know what a TV antenna was if I spanked them with it -- which by the way, I don't."
According to the producers, the average working writer in Hollywood makes $200,000 a year, although, as the guild points out, only about half its membership is employed at any one time.
During the contract negotiations, which stalled after eleventh-hour negotiations failed on Sunday, the studios proposed paying writers their residuals not on gross receipts but net profits. That was viewed as an insult by many writers (such a net-profit participation scheme is referred to derisively as "monkey points" in Hollywood).
"There is the old joke that, according to Hollywood accounting, no movie has ever turned a profit," said Ben Watkins, a writer for the USA Network show "Burn Notice." "Everybody in America knows how big new-media is going to be. We just want our share."
Nick Counter, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group that negotiates with the writers' guild, called the walkout "irresponsible."
The producers' alliance points out how wealthy many guild writers are -- at least ones such as Fey and Brooks.
"Look around you," countered Skrovan. "This is not a group of millionaires. This is a feast-and-famine business."
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