Friday, January 11, 2008

Writer's Winning Marketing War With Studios

So far the writer's strike appears to be a marketing win for the Writer's Guild, though the TV networks are financially doing fine.

One of the main sticking points is the lack of sharing revenues from online content with the writers. The studios are making deals left and right to expand their online revenue, so they need to put pressure on the writers by publicly offering a percentage of the gross revenue.

NBC says it is on target to make $1 billion in digital revenue in 2009, so claiming there is no money to be made is ridiculous. Sony is cutting up old shows into small pieces and distributing them via YouTube, giving new life to Al Bundy. 

CBS says it is surviving the strike just fine while the writers are in financial straights. But that's because the strike has yet to halt a majority of the scripted series. Wait a month until the only thing left is reality TV and the audience will stop turning on to channel surf because they know they won't have anything worthwhile to watch.

The late night hosts who are uncomfortable to be working sans writers have expressed their sympathies, leading to a PR mess. Railing against your corporate bosses to millions of viewers can't be good for the corporate culture. Jon Stewart et al are conflicted because they don't want to make the shows too good to make the writers look bad, yet they are professionals who don't care to bore audiences.

If the studios picked some number to split the revenue with the writers, they could swing momentum back in their direction. They can't say there is no money to be made, so let's get the dialog going.

Posted By John Gartner at 08:43 AM
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