Right between movies and TV stands the new electronic media market, from cell phones to wireless devices to PCs and MP3 players, including iPods. All of them have made decent splashes as new markets for TV shows, movies and other entertainment content to be displayed and sold to the public.
Now, I’ve never understood the appeal of paying Apple $1.99 per episode of The Office when you can watch it for free on an HDTV screen in much larger size and far superior 1080p resolution, but to each their own; the point is, there’s money to be made there and the big networks are already raking it in.
That’s what makes Hollywood producers’ arguments ring a bit hallow when they claim that new media is largely untested and they don’t want to set a share for the writers until the revenue numbers clear up a bit. Considering such additional royalties would be paid on a percentage basis, I just don’t see where it can’t be determined.
After all, whether the figure is four percent, six percent or some other percentage, it’s not a hard-and-fast dollar figure; just like producers, writers would only be getting a slice of whatever revenue pie exists, not a slice of sales that haven’t been made quite yet.
The producers need to get serious and start offering writers a real stake in the future of the entertainment industry, before a large portion of the audience decides to stay away even after the strike is over.
