January 6, 2009 by Editor.

While everyone’s thinking TV-Theatrical, the Commercials Plenary is upon us. That’s when the ideas generated in the joint SAG/AFTRA W&W sessions will be taken to New York, refined and developed into prioritized bargaining proposals. The proposals will then be taken to a joint session of the National Boards for approval - the first such session since the unions split over TV-Theatrical/Exhibit A.

The Commercials contract doesn’t get the publicity and isn’t as high profile politically as TV-Theatrical, but is huge for both SAG and AFTRA members. Literally thousands of members make their living doing commercials, and if they’re up to speed on the issues, they’re worried.

If you think the TV-Theatrical talks have been tough, the Commercials negotiations may make them look like a picnic. Voiceguy has already contributed several important posts on the Booz Allen study that will undoubtedly prove important as a basis of discussion.

We’re looking forward to more from him - and others - as these negotiations draw closer. We’re also pleased to say that so far the non disparagement agreement between the unions seems to be holding. That agreement was critical to being able to hold the talks jointly…and joint talks was something the industry insisted upon, even when SAG and AFTRA were at their low point. 

Posted in Commercials Contract, SAG Politics, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical, SAG-AFTRA | Print | No Comments »

January 5, 2009 by admin.

The first phrase of the Wall Street Journal tells the critical part story: “With U.S. ad spending expected to fall 6.2% to $161.8 billion this year, …” The rest of the story is no big deal.

Posted in Commercials Contract, Media Business | Print | 1 Comment »

January 2, 2009 by admin.

Movie shoots on the streets of Los Angeles may have hit a contemporary low last year. A closely watched count of film permits for outdoor shoots in the Los Angeles area shows that feature film shooting days totaled just 1,181 in the third quarter of 2008, down 38 percent from the year before, according to FilmLA, the nonprofit organization that coordinates permits for location shooting in the area.

Philip Sokoloski, the organization’s communications manager, said fourth-quarter statistics would not be available until later this month. But the trend appeared not to have changed much, Mr. Sokoloski said in a telephone interview. Los Angeles has generally been the film industry’s single busiest location. But filming there dropped as studios slowed production in anticipation of a possible strike by the Screen Actors Guild, while Michigan, Louisiana and other states lured productions with big subsidies. If the fourth quarter was as weak as the third in Los Angeles, the year’s total could come up short of the 7,304 shooting days logged in 1994, the earliest year for which FilmLA’s Web site provides statistics (eidc.com/data_report.php).

The above from the New York Times, Arts Briefly, Movie Shoots Become Scarce on the Streets of Los Angeles.

Posted in Commercials Contract, Media Business, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical | Print | 17 Comments »

January 2, 2009 by Editor.

The Los Angeles Times is out with an article that doesn’t break new ground so much as summarize what we’ve been seeing for months, that the entertainment business is not immune from the economic mess. Here’s a snippet:

Studios are also scaling back the number of movies they are making.

Indeed, the capital crunch will help ensure it. Paramount and MGM weren’t able to close “slate” film financing deals in 2008, and prospects for securing such arrangements in the near term appear bleak. Even one of the world’s most famous filmmakers, Steven Spielberg, is struggling to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in debt financing to help bankroll his new studio.

Although most studios have long-term financing deals in place, their lenders are looking to renegotiate terms, including lower distribution fees that studios earn for releasing the movies. The studios may have to resort more to self-financing their productions.

That would force them to take on greater risk and make fewer films, says Richard Dorfman, managing director for the New York investment firm Richard Alan Inc. “The credit crunch will have a pervasive effect on the movie business in 2009 and 2010,” Dorfman said.

And in a note that underscores how difficult the upcoming Commercial Contract talks will be, the article says commercial production is down 20% in the last quarter of 2008, due to cutbacks by car companies and other major advertisers. According to the paper, commercials work accounts for 12% of the on location shoot days in Los Angeles.

Posted in Commercials Contract, Media Business, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical | Print | 30 Comments »

December 26, 2008 by admin.

A bizarre e-mail from 5757 this afternoon:

From: Screen Actors Guild
Sent: Dec 26, 2008 7:39 PM
To: SAG Members
Subject: GUILD MEMBERS: Contract Reminder

Dear Screen Actors Guild Member,

During this holiday season, and into the new year of 2009, please be reminded that you are free to audition, accept employment and work under all of the Guild’s contracts.
These include the following:

Basic Cable Animation Agreement
Basic Cable Live Action Agreement
Commercials Contract
Industrial/Educational Agreement
Interactive Media/Video Game Agreement
Theatrical and Television Agreements
TV Animation Agreement

The terms and working conditions that apply under these contracts shall continue without change until further notice, whether or not they have expired.

We wish all of you a happy and healthy new year.

Screen Actors Guild

Did someone get confused? Very confused? Did the Allens want to remind us they still exist? Or is there something going on that none of us understand?

Posted in Animation Contract, Basic Cable, Interactive, Commercials Contract, SAG Politics, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical | Print | 8 Comments »

December 24, 2008 by admin.

We’re taking a break for the holiday. Barring the unlikely event of the AMPTP playing Santa and us noticing that they did it, we’re all putting union activity aside, and heading for family activities.

We hope you’re all doing the same, and that your holidays are a lot better than this past year!

Posted in Commercials Contract, Interactive, Animation Contract, Basic Cable, SAG Politics, Editorial, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical, Media Business, Union Politics, SAG-AFTRA | Print | 31 Comments »

December 23, 2008 by WW.

Buried in the middle of a rambling Variety article yesterday was a section about a court ruling that the rag said could hurt the Pension & Health Plans.  

Meanwhile, in a potential blow to SAG and its high-profile actors, the ad industry recently won a complex federal court ruling against SAG over how disputes on pension and health contributions from commercials are resolved. On Dec. 8, Judge Percy Anderson in Los Angeles threw out SAG’s lawsuit to overturn an arbitrator’s finding that pension and health contributions must be resolved by mandatory bargaining on a case-by-case basis, followed by arbitration rather than via a lawsuit by the P&H trustees.

The core of the ad industry’s complaint focused on advertisers paying a disproportionate amount — far more than movie and TV producers — into SAG’s P&H fund due to the presence of extras in movies and TV (but not ads) and the absence of contribution caps in the commercials contract. That means advertisers were required to make P&H contributions for actors making more than $125,000 per engagement, even when the actor’s compensation included “noncovered” services such as print advertising and public appearances.

The ad industry believes that the ruling — which upsets three decades of practice — will save it millions of dollars. Ad industry attorney Douglas Wood told Daily Variety that the key to the ruling was removing the ability of the SAG trustees to threaten a suit based on an alleged violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

“The consequences of an ERISA verdict are so draconian that advertisers would simply settle,” Wood noted. “Federal litigation has been inappropriately and unfairly used by the trustees as a sword of Damocles over the heads of advertisers. They will now have the ability to determine and resolve allocations in a fair, reasonable basis without threat of litigation or arbitrary deadlines imposed by the fund trustees.”

SAG and SAG P&H had no comment about the ruling.

It doesn’t sound good - but we’re not sure we really understand it. If anyone has a better explanation than Variety’s, we’d love to hear it.

Posted in Commercials Contract | Print | 4 Comments »

December 22, 2008 by admin.

Hedgpeth and Reardon, interviewed by Andrew Salomon. Largely history, but well worth a read.

Posted in Interactive, Animation Contract, Basic Cable, Commercials Contract, SAG Politics, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical, Media Business, SAG-AFTRA | Print | 19 Comments »

December 15, 2008 by admin.

The letter from 130 A-listers politely explaining that while they support SAG they don’t support the strike authorization in TV-Theatrical has to be the harshest criticism yet of Membership First’s attempt to cling to control of the union apparatus at 5757. We don’t think the AMPTP has missed the clear signal that the Allens are lame ducks, and that if there was any doubt, the clear majority of working members has rejected the confrontational style of the past few years.

As always in SAG politics, it seems there are two or three sides, and all sorts of angles being played. While the letter seems very significant - a strong indication that the strike authorization vote won’t come anywhere near the necessary 75% to pass, The Hollywood Reporter points out there are some conspicuous absences from those who signed, including the entire leadership of Unite for Strength.

That leaves the fate of the TV-Theatrical contract in a strange limbo. The AMPTP wouldn’t budge even before this latest example of SAG disunity. It certainly won’t now. Given the stinging rebuke from the A-listers and the open rebellion in New York, leading to the cancellation of the “emergency” National Board meeting, we’d expect the Allens to do what they’ve done so far: dig in their heels and engage in battles over the rules.

A snippet from THR shows how bad it’s become:

Last week, at a national executive committee meeting, conducted via video conference, the New York and regional members walked out after Rosenberg twice interrupted a New York member who was trying to speak, according to two people who were present. The walkout effectively canceled the NEC meeting because there was no longer a quorum.

Then came the on/off “emergency” board meeting, and Membership First started complaining about disloyalty and leaks. Again, from THR:

However, at the NEC several New Yorkers reminded the president that several current board members picketed SAG offices in 1997 to protest the commercials contract; later, some of that group were part of insurgent efforts to defeat a merger with AFTRA in 1998 and 2003.

“For him to accuse any guild member for speaking their mind is rank hypocrisy,” said one New Yorker.

 Some Membership First loyalists went so far as to accuse the New York Board of violating a 1985 policy limiting who can speak on behalf of SAG, even though the New Yorkers had made it plain they were not speaking for anyone other than their own board. So where does all this leave us?

As usual, Steve Diamond’s analysis seems right on the money:

These are signs of an organization that no longer has (if it ever had) effective leadership. And thus of an organization that cannot achieve its goals easily if at all. Leadership is not about charisma, or rhetoric, or a faux toughness. It is about an effective analysis of the strategic terrain, an assessment of the available resources and the design and implementation of a strategy to use those resources on that terrain in pursuit of an organization’s goals. 

We expect the strike authorization vote to go out as scheduled. When it comes back, if the results reject the authorization vote by anything more than the narrowest of margins, it has to be seen as another vote of no confidence in the Allens and their negotiating committee. Whether they will take any action if that comes to pass is something we’ll have to wait a month or more to learn.

In the meantime, we expect no progress of any kind on TV-Theatrical. Hopefully we’ll see some on other contracts.

Posted in Commercials Contract, SAG Politics, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical | Print | 3 Comments »

December 11, 2008 by Editor.

In what has to be taken as a hopeful sign for SAG-AFTRA relations as well as a step forward for all commercial actors, SAG and AFTRA have completed their first major joint project since the breakdown last year in TV-Theatrical/Exhibit A, using the old Phase 1 rules. The joint SAG/AFTRA Commercials Contract W&W wrapped up today after sessions nationwide in which there were disagreements, but the disagreements were handled with respect and without the bitter intra-union sniping we’ve seen over the past three years. 

The list of proposals generated at the W&W sessions will be taken to a Joint Plenary in New York scheduled for January 9-10, where they will be prioritized and sent for approval to an early February joint SAG/AFTRA board meeting - also the first since the TV-Theatrical/Exhibit A split. Assuming they’re approved there, the proposals will be given to the joint negotiating committee, which will meet with the JPC probably later that month.

The non disparagment agreement between the unions is being given much of the credit for making the joint process work. Even though it still hasn’t been formally signed, both unions seem to be working under the deal, which bans criticism of one union or its leaders by the other, and sets heavy fines for any violations.

Posted in Commercials Contract, SAG-AFTRA | Print | No Comments »