Dramatis Personae: The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers

The name of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is a little misleading, though perhaps not intentionally so. It is not, as it sounds like, a collection of the men and women who get producer credits on movies and television shows; as we’ve already seen, many of those people are writers, actors, and/or directors in their own rights, and as a result are members of one of Hollywood’s grand plethora of guilds. No, the AMPTP is an association that represents just about any company that produces television shows or movies on which guild labor is used. The list is long -- over 300 members -- but the highlights include ABC, Dreamworks, CBS, Fox, NBC, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Disney, and Warner Brothers.

As you can imagine, the AMPTP has an enormous amount of money, and its President has a fairly impressive resumé: J. Nicholas Counter III, who as head of the organization serves as its chief negotiator in its talks with not only the WGA but with the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild of America, and the constellation of other guilds and unions in showbusiness, got his law degree from Stanford in 1966 and before becoming the head of the AMPTP worked with the prestigious Los Angeles law firm Mitchell Silberberg and Knupp, which has a long history of representing consortuims of entertainment businesses. Counter plays hardball, and he seems to be prepared to use the vast amounts of money at his disposal to try to wait out the competition:

Mr. Counter said companies were prepared to use alternative programming like reality shows, reruns and movies to fill broadcast and cable networks during a walkout that might last, by his estimation, 9 or 10 months. (source)

Understandably, the WGA hates him, and the blog United Hollywood has already accused him of spreading disinformation when he implied that the WGA could end up blacklisting its own members for violating strike rules. That’s possible, but it’s also part of negotiation in a fight as ugly as this one has become. Both sides look to demonize the other. Counter is good at that.

Anyway, returning to the subject at hand, the AMPTP was founded in 1982, and Counter was tabbed then as their chief. He was in place when the WGA last struck, in March of 1988, a strike that lasted five months, obliterating the end of the 87-88 season and pushing back programming for the 88-89 season into winter. That strike saw the invention of reality television as we know it today, with shows like “Cops” filling the gaps as shows like “Cheers” vacated the airwaves.

So, what is the stance of the AMPTP? In its essence, it’s that new media is, well, new, and they don’t know how to make money off it yet, or whether it will gut their business, and as such it would be unwise to go about promising money willy-nilly to talent. Obviously, the actual issues at hand are more complicated than that, but that’s what it boils down to. That said, Counter and his compatriots have occasionally said other things. Here, for example, is a message from 1 November, days before the strike started:

. . . no further progress can be made because of the WGA’s continuing efforts to substantially increase the DVD formula. We’re ready to meet at any time . . . but the DVD issue is a roadblock to these negotiations.

While this may have been true at the time, several writers came forth after the strike began and said that the kibosh had been put the DVD demands in an eleventh-hour attempt to salvage negotiations, but it didn’t work. It seems pretty clear that AMPTP felt its strongest public negotiations ploy was to deal with the DVD issue, and with specific numbers -- according to industry statements, DVD residuals paid to writers came to $56 million in 2006. That sounds like a big number. That said, the studios made billions off those DVDs -- but the AMPTP is not alone in telling half-truths in this situation, so it’s probably wise to give them a pass.

The next day, a statement on the AMPTP website again addressed the DVD proposal first, calling it “unresonable”. Then it goes on to say that writers do get residuals from new media, and that the writers demands in that area will inhibit “our ability to experiment, innovate, analyze and adapt”. They have continued to hit this point again and again: Writers do get paid for new media of all kinds. New payments would be prohibitive.

It’s difficult to find information on exactly how much writers get paid for new media -- iTunes downloads, streaming video views, and so on -- but since the AMPTP has not named a specific number, my guess is that it wouldn’t look particularly high, even to Joe Blow at home on his computer. According the AMPTP, the basic issue is that writers want to be paid for advertisements on streaming video, while the AMPTP wants to pay them a share of producers’ revenue. What does that mean in dollars and cents? I’m too dumb to figure it out. Sorry, guys.

I’ll be back with news hits later in the day.

addendum: Here is an article in which Entertainment Weekly attempts to break down how much writers might make off internet residuals. Yeah, it didn't help me much, either.