January 6, 2009 by admin.

Variety: Homevideo biz takes a hit in ‘08; Overall sales drop 3-4% despite Blu-ray’s rise.

LA Times: Auto sales in U.S. fall 18% in 2008. That plays into advertising being down overall.

Broadway getting darker, fast.

Bottom line: it doesn’t look like the entertainment business is immune this time around. We’re aware that some are calling this all pro-AMPTP propaganda… they remind me of the guy who insisted “the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are sound.”

Posted in SAG Politics, Media Business, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical | Print | 5 Comments »

January 5, 2009 by WW.

Can’t remember ever hearing about anything like this. The New York Times says nine Broadway productions — including “Hairspray,” “Young Frankenstein,” “Boeing-Boeing,” “13” and “Grease” — closed for good on Sunday, some as scheduled, and some as a result of declining audiences in grim economic times.

This represents the loss of hundreds of acting jobs in New York, and many IA and AFM jobs as well.

It’s also not the end of the closings. Spamalot is due to go dark at the end of this week, and three more are to close in the following week.

Posted in Media Business | Print | 4 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 5, 2009 by Number Six.

Joel’s Stein’s Op-Ed this morning is worth a look. It’s a funny pro-merger column. Here’s the final bit: 

I ran my mega-union idea by Patric M. Verrone, the president of the Writers Guild, and he loved it. “Why stop there? Let’s merge with AFTRA, the IATSE, Teamsters Local 399, the basic trades unions and the AFM,” he said, clearly making up extra unions to seem tougher. “If the AMPTP can unite competitive, global media conglomerates, why can’t talent do the same?” Verrone’s eagerness to join hands with the other guilds told me one thing: Writers definitely are the least important people in Hollywood.

I hope the directors’ and actors’ unions are just as enthusiastic. If we can all come together, we’ll have the leverage to avert a SAG strike and get much of what we all want. Besides, in a few years, our mega-union is going to have to merge with the AMPTP itself so we can take on our common enemy: people with video cameras and a YouTube account who are willing to work for free. You think negotiating with Rupert Murdoch is tough? Try getting concessions out of a funny cat.

Posted in Media Business, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical, SAG-AFTRA | Print | No Comments »

January 4, 2009 by Editor.

Just because the producers’ financial situation has been so much in the news lately - we’ll note the Universal Pictures unit of General Electric has completed its sale of Rogue Pictures, a maker and distributor of lower-cost films, to Relativity Media for about $150 million… not all that much, if consider what a hit or two could yield. 

Posted in Media Business | Print | No Comments »

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 »

January 1, 2009 by Editor.

>Our first post in the SAGWatch blog was June 8, 2008, as the Allens were gearing up their anti-AFTRA Exhibit A campaign. It drew three comments.

Since then, there have been 5069 comments (not counting the spam or other stuff we deleted). This will be post #653.

From June 8 until December 31, 2008, people had looked at those posts 537,672 times.

In the pre-blog format our first post was Dec. 13, 2007, and we logged 51,018 visits prior to switching over to the blog.

From 107 visits that month, we had hits 117,698 one year later. Our only publicity has been word of mouth.

When we started this, we weren’t sure where it was going, or even if we were going anywhere. We’re just blown away. Thanks for caring about your unions enough to visit us.

Posted in SAG Politics, Union Politics, Media Business, SAG-AFTRA | Print | 12 Comments »

January 1, 2009 by Editor.

After a contract offer deemed insufficient, Viacom threatened to strike against Time Warner Cable. Steve Diamond has an interesting explanation of how and when a strike threat works…and contrasts it with something more familiar to us all.

The threat by Viacom to pull its channels off of Time Warner’s cable system was backed by en effective PR campaign (no catchy Sitrick slogans were used in the making of this campaign) and boom! This morning Viacom had its deal.

Posted in SAG Politics, Media Business, Exhibit A - TV Theatrical | Print | 21 Comments »

December 31, 2008 by admin.

In the dispute that may lead to Viacom channels and shows disappearing from Time Warner cable systems at midnight tonight, sure, TWC is complaining about the economy, and Viacom’s looking for a 12% raise -about a quarter per cable subscriber per month. But we’re hearing that one of the big things Time Warner is throwing in Viacom’s face is loss of viewers…to Viacom’s own content — on the internet. Funny how these arguments come around. 

Posted in Media Business | Print | 4 Comments »