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It's also depressingly predictable that the AMPTP's position seems to basically be 'gosh, the residual model and 6 month writer room contracts are so outdated' but also they won't budge on restructuring the contract in such a way where writers can make a decent amount without those things.
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Jul 22, 2023 01:40
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One thing I haven't seen considered - and I think in some cases it might be more relevant than others: there's a potential that for a lot of these streamers, their tools loving suck. They made a bunch of different, proprietary ways to stream data efficiently to a shitload of clients multiple clients. Some of them mightly simply have the logging capability that we think they do. It sure seems like they should, but a lot of these services were built out so fast and so different from one another, I'm going to guess it's likely at least one of them doesn't have a proper logging method, and their (now pared back) development team is accurately telling them it'll take months to implement. I can't imagine all of these companies were built as solid as Netflix was.
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Jul 22, 2023 02:34
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I wonder if part of the challenge of streaming residuals is: 1. There isn’t really an industry standard definition for “views.” Regular TV viewership is measured, I assume, by Nielsen. It’s a crap methodology but it’s a standard one. Instead I’m sure every streaming service has their own internal, technical, individualized notion of a view count. 2. Streaming services don’t want to share viewing numbers with other services. We’ve been assuming the opacity is to help them pay cast and crew less. But it’s also invaluable competitor data. Imagine if, I dunno, Peacock had data on what was working on Netflix. It’d be much easier to close that gap.
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Jul 22, 2023 03:32
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Vegetable posted:2. Streaming services don’t want to share viewing numbers with other services. We’ve been assuming the opacity is to help them pay cast and crew less. But it’s also invaluable competitor data. Imagine if, I dunno, Peacock had data on what was working on Netflix. It’d be much easier to close that gap. Hmm. I hadn't considered that "their tools are actually too good" but yeah it's also a real possibility.
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Jul 22, 2023 03:39
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Doesn't Neilsen track streaming now? That's enough for competitors to know what's working, even if they don't have all the data.
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Jul 22, 2023 03:40
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 wow
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Jul 22, 2023 03:51
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Yeah, historically companies never like to disclose any more of their business than they legally have to.
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Jul 22, 2023 03:51
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ApeHawk posted:
lol What a great way for the city tree department to pay for a lunch order. They're not going to go to court over that.
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Jul 22, 2023 04:11
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Comcast made a huge bet on Peacock. It started shortly after they bought NBCUNIVERSAL from GE in what 2013 or so? They immediately built a streaming team to build Peacock and sunk 5ish years of development into the product. The logging is there in some kind of huge data lake and the tools are the best the team could develop at the time. The ad sales team demanded that as they were doing this whole Nielsen numbers are bullshit thing at the same time citing set top box data from the cable companies not jiving with the Nielsen numbers for the NBC shows. Source: I was in NBCU’s IT team from 2013 to 2018, working with, but not on, the Peacock dev team. But most of this should be online by now. So I’m leaning heavily on the data exists but would not be advantageous to release specifics in light of the current corporate landscape. Looking at how Disney and Comcast are handling the Hulu situation with Comcast basically forcing Disney to buy them out at something like a $9Bn valuation, it genuinely seems like maybe the numbers are not where the owners hope. But the embarrassment of having a streaming platform that is a loss leader may open the company to a shareholder lawsuit for tanking the stock valuation through mismanagement. But I don’t have any solid data supporting that, just projections based on random data that may be nothing at all.
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Jul 22, 2023 04:39
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Its crazy how much of streaming is just a black box for writers. My great-aunt wrote a country song that me and my cousin occasionally get royalties to. It ended up in one of Netflix's original movies and it was kind've cool to see the country-by-country breakdown. Not sure why, but Netflix Poland was a big line item.
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Jul 22, 2023 04:52
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Nystral posted:So I’m leaning heavily on the data exists but would not be advantageous to release specifics in light of the current corporate landscape. Looking at how Disney and Comcast are handling the Hulu situation with Comcast basically forcing Disney to buy them out at something like a $9Bn valuation, it genuinely seems like maybe the numbers are not where the owners hope. But the embarrassment of having a streaming platform that is a loss leader may open the company to a shareholder lawsuit for tanking the stock valuation through mismanagement. But I don’t have any solid data supporting that, just projections based on random data that may be nothing at all. My biggest problem with that is the sheer fiduciary irresponsibility of it. If it was all based on lies, that leans less into the territory of speculation and more into the range of outright federally illegal fraud. And while I don't doubt that some companies might be willing to go that far, I can't understand a world where every company does.
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Jul 22, 2023 04:56
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I imagine they have to report the overall revenue from the service, though Hollywood Accounting is a thing. What they don’t have to report is how much people are actually using the service they pay for.
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Jul 22, 2023 05:00
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ApeHawk posted:
What a loving joke, Jesus Christ.
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Jul 22, 2023 05:22
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Narcissus1916 posted:Its crazy how much of streaming is just a black box for writers. My great-aunt wrote a country song that me and my cousin occasionally get royalties to. It ended up in one of Netflix's original movies and it was kind've cool to see the country-by-country breakdown. Not sure why, but Netflix Poland was a big line item. Neither of us had ever heard a single word from Netflix after they received what they paid for. Feedback, metrics, status updates? Nope! Total silence. The company is an impenetrable black box. (I never once heard directly from anyone there; my agent got an email from their accounts department saying "Here's your money" and that was that. Not even the most basic "Congratulations, Payndz" message.)
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Jul 22, 2023 10:49
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Maxwell Lord posted:I imagine they have to report the overall revenue from the service, though Hollywood Accounting is a thing. What they don’t have to report is how much people are actually using the service they pay for. They have to report the revenue from the service somewhere in their financial statements, but they don't have to report it out as a separate line item. I'm not familiar with the streamers' financial statements, but for example it's impossible to know how much money Apple is making from Apple Watch. They report the revenue from iPhone, iPad, and Mac separately, so you can tell how much money they're making on each of those. But for Apple Watch, they have a category called "Wearables, home, and accessories", so that the revenue from Apple Watch is mixed up with the revenue from speakers and AirPods and cases and cables etc etc. The only direct measure we have to measure the Watch's success is whatever stats Apple selectively releases.
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Jul 22, 2023 14:13
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This is crazy https://twitter.com/thatbilloakley/status/1682643576981946368?s=46&t=BHs6Pl38GJXGN2Y4xeriNA
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Jul 22, 2023 23:58
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FlamingLiberal posted:This is crazy From now on every time WB/Discovery is in the news for financial woes I'm going to think of that Dril tweet about candles
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Jul 23, 2023 00:41
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Christ, almost $500m??? Zaslav's complete lack of shame is almost impressive. Was watching a stream the other day where Rahul Kohli was hanging out with a mate and generally just goofing around together playing a janky video game. Naturally talk turned to the strike though and he mentioned that due to being with the UK actor's union when he started out, there was some kind of screw up with his residuals for iZombie. Basically, the rest of the cast receive their payments fine but he doesn't get series payments *except* for a single check for £75 each year for episode 3 from the first season. 75 quid an episode per year...and the streaming services are refusing to even match that kind of payment? Just burn it all down imo.
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Jul 23, 2023 00:48
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One big shift in business over the years is that boards keep promising big guaranteed money, golden parachutes, the like to any perceived successful executive- it’s almost never promotion from within anymore, it’s “we gotta get this guy! He’s the best! He’ll change everything for the better!” Like Zaslav made money for Discovery so naturally he’s a cinch to run the movie/TV studio too, give him everything he asks for, don’t risk someone else poaching him. Plus high end income taxes are lower than corporate taxes so the most efficient use of a company’s money is just to give it to yourself.
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Jul 23, 2023 01:57
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Argyle posted:WGA member here. My first episode of TV aired in 2018. It was for a successful network show that is also one of the most-watched shows on Hulu (a rep from Hulu told us that directly). Dang, a coworker used to act & had two or three seconds of screen time in one of the Nolan Batman films. On the take they used Morgan Freeman had suggested they say a line which isn’t audible, but it elevated him to a speaking role. Since then the residual checks ranged from a little bit to like $850 so guessing he had a better deal than present day writers.
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Jul 23, 2023 21:02
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Hyrax Attack! posted:so guessing he had a better deal than present day writers. Those days are super over and they very much need not to be. It's not the actors' fault you're not monetizing your poo poo properly.
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Jul 23, 2023 21:32
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https://deadline.com/2023/07/alien-alex-lawther-samuel-blenkin-cast-fx-series-production-no-sag-aftra-actors-strike-1235443713/ Does anyone know Noah Hawley's position re: the strike? He's directing here, and would have been involved in casting too. One of these is the little socialist kid from Andor, which shouldn't matter as much but kinda stings a bit tbh.
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Jul 23, 2023 21:55
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Open Source Idiom posted:https://deadline.com/2023/07/alien-alex-lawther-samuel-blenkin-cast-fx-series-production-no-sag-aftra-actors-strike-1235443713/ The DGA and the British actor's union will both have "no strike" clause in their contract, meaning that they are not allowed to back out of work in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA and WGA. The article makes this point: quote:Equity performers have been told that they risk being sued for breach of contract if they walk off set in solidarity with American colleagues. This is on the producers.
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Jul 23, 2023 22:11
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Yeah HotD s2 is still filming because they're all Equity.
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Jul 23, 2023 22:37
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One weird trick! But I do love the idea that the Andor actor read his poo poo and off screen was just like, this is all loving bullshit
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Jul 23, 2023 22:48
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Aren't they scabbing just by virtue of applying for the job, particularly when you've got actors like Alex Lawther and Essie Davis, neither of whom would have much difficulty getting work based on their CVs and awards history. Perhaps not quite as prestigious a role, but ho hum. I guess it would depend on when they were cast, though actors are often cast only a couple of weeks before filming, so I dunno. I can't imagine they weren't aware that they'd be non-(SAG) union labour replacing striking actors. I guess there's not quite enough information to go one way or the other here, but I can still see the case for them being scab labour.
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Jul 23, 2023 22:49
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Open Source Idiom posted:Aren't they scabbing just by virtue of applying for the job, particularly when you've got actors like Alex Lawther and Essie Davis, neither of whom would have much difficulty getting work based on their CVs and awards history. Perhaps not quite as prestigious a role, but ho hum. The article you linked to talks about this in the third paragraph? quote:The deals for the actors were made well before the SAG-AFTRA strike started July 14, It's not scabbing to apply for a job "well before" there's a strike.
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Jul 23, 2023 22:56
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Ahh, yeah -- and I totally get where you're coming from here, but how does the article define "well before"? A month? Three months? It's not defined. Also the wording there is finnicky, given that you could convincingly argue that the strike was also announced "well before" it actually began (on July 14). So the dates their contracts were signed becomes the determinant on the issue. But given we'll probably never know that, it's probably not worth splitting hairs over. Fair enough.
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Jul 23, 2023 23:15
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Yes, the strike vote was made well before the deadline but the strike technically could've been called off right up until midnight on the 13th, so that's kind of a lovely standard to try and pull. You can't just stop looking for work for a month because a strike 'might' happen. Like, would you hold literally any other industry to that?
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Jul 23, 2023 23:48
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Open Source Idiom posted:Aren't they scabbing just by virtue of applying for the job, particularly when you've got actors like Alex Lawther and Essie Davis, neither of whom would have much difficulty getting work based on their CVs and awards history. Perhaps not quite as prestigious a role, but ho hum. Where are you getting this information from that they're replacements for striking actors? The SAG members of the cast aren't filming and the non-SAG members who are in Equity are filming. It would be a breach of contract for the Equity people to decide not to film, it doesn't have anything to do with being a scab or not.
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Jul 24, 2023 00:04
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Gaz-L posted:Yes, the strike vote was made well before the deadline but the strike technically could've been called off right up until midnight on the 13th, so that's kind of a lovely standard to try and pull. You can't just stop looking for work for a month because a strike 'might' happen. Like, would you hold literally any other industry to that? I mean, I'm trying to work it out here, but at this point I probably would hold other industries to a similar standard. e.g. if the French teacher's union is probably about to strike, I don't think it's fine for German teachers, under a separate German teacher's union, to apply for contracts working at French schools, particularly when still they're capable of getting work in their home country. I'm not saying that these actors should swear off all work, particularly since they're not themselves part of striking unions, just that I believe that some of them, like Lawther and Davis, could have pursued less tendentious work instead. Of course now they're stuck in their contracts and have to fulfill them, I understand this, but they still chose to put themselves in postion such that they're outside labour coming in to work on an American company's prequel TV series for an American film, filming during a period that (a contract would stipulate) would ocurr simultaneously with when the American acting union would likely be engaging in a strike. But of course this is dependent on just how long ago contracts were signed, and how aware they were about the situation when they signed them. But I think saying that they can't be scabs because their hands are currently tied ignores the issue that, at one point, they weren't obligated.
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Jul 24, 2023 00:52
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FlamingLiberal posted:This is crazy I had a quick sensible chuckle at "Whitesell"
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Jul 24, 2023 20:37
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YeahTubaMike posted:I had a quick sensible chuckle at "Whitesell" You could conservatively cover ALL of the WGA, DGA and SAG financial demands over the next contract term on JUST Zaslav's pay from that period. And still leave him at ~$10M a year
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Jul 24, 2023 21:01
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https://variety.com/2023/film/news/dwayne-johnson-donation-sag-aftra-foundation-strike-relief-fund-1235678671/ The Rock has made the largest ever donation to the SAG-AFTRA relief fund. The exact amount is being kept confidential but according to the article it was seven figures.
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Jul 25, 2023 00:05
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:And none of this is new. One of the classic examples is Sergeant Slaughter. He built his entire persona on rah rah Marine/American exceptionalism, enough so that Hasbro hired him to be an actual member of the GI joe cartoon/action figures and to be the live action face of it. Not to go into a wrestling derail, but Slaughter actually spent most of his career as a hated bad guy, playing the role of a sadistic USMC drill instructor. He only became a beloved "American hero" during the height of 1980s USA jingoism, though his timing was rather unfortunate as it coincided with the rise of Hulkamania and Vince decided he didn't really need two "Real American"-type of guys in the same company.
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Jul 25, 2023 00:25
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muscles like this! posted:https://variety.com/2023/film/news/dwayne-johnson-donation-sag-aftra-foundation-strike-relief-fund-1235678671/ Probably trying to get back in some of his peers' good graces after pissing off basically everyone in Hollywood over the last three years.
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Jul 25, 2023 00:45
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Whatever his motivation, it's a good thing that is going to help a lot of people which in turn will help to keep the pressure on the studios.
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Jul 25, 2023 01:37
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Jerusalem posted:Whatever his motivation, it's a good thing that is going to help a lot of people which in turn will help to keep the pressure on the studios. Yeah, if you told me it was political I'd nod and shrug. And if it inspires other actors with millions to burn then hey, go with God.
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Jul 25, 2023 01:41
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Dawgstar posted:Yeah, if you told me it was political I'd nod and shrug. And if it inspires other actors with millions to burn then hey, go with God. Is it somehow aiding Xenu and that's why Cruise didn't do it?
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Jul 25, 2023 01:44
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muscles like this! posted:https://variety.com/2023/film/news/dwayne-johnson-donation-sag-aftra-foundation-strike-relief-fund-1235678671/ This is Rock’s revenge against WB for not following through on changing the hierarchy of power.
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Jul 25, 2023 02:26
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