When the Writers Guild of America went on strike two weeks ago, experts were predicting an unhappy ending for the 10,500 members heading for picket lines. After all, two dominant trends in American life over the past 25 years have been the decline of unions and the consolidation of power in a handful of supersized media conglomerates.
But in a plot twist not even the TV and film writers anticipated, the guild is winning on at least two fronts - public opinion and production disruptions - against media giants such as Viacom and Disney.
Pointing to an agreement announced Friday night between the major studios and striking writers to resume contract talks Nov. 26, some economists see the possibility of significant gains - if not victory - for the writers.
"The announcement this weekend, and the fact that it came less than two weeks into the strike, is [a] clear indication of how decisively the writers were winning the early rounds of this battle," says Douglas Gomery, a media economist at the University of Maryland, College Park. "When the strike began on Nov. 5, the studios said they wouldn't resume talks as long as the writers were still on strike, but now they've suddenly changed course and are headed back to the table. This is the media giants being the first to blink."
According to the Writers Guild, picket lines at Hollywood studios will stay in place through Tuesday, culminating in a rally and march down Hollywood Boulevard by union members that day. Picketing will be suspended Wednesday through Sunday for the Thanksgiving holiday - and then will resume Nov. 26, when the talks start up again. Negotiations broke down primarily over the issue of how writers would be compensated for their work in new media.
The unprecedented dominance enjoyed by the few giant companies is the very thing that has made the guild's early success possible, according to some analysts.
"It's like the steel or American auto industry in the old days, when there were only a handful of companies that controlled everything," says Gomery, scholar in residence at the University of Maryland's Library of American Broadcasting. "Now, you have five or six media giants, depending on how you count, that run all the TV networks and film studios. And it's easier to set up and enforce five or six picket lines than it is 50 or 60. That's the story so far, but understand that the strike is far from over."
Public relations blitz
There is general agreement that it is too early to predict the outcome of what is already one of the worst Hollywood labor disputes in more than two decades. Just as media consolidation has resulted in a more focused target for the union, it can also make it easier for companies to maintain unity in long-term negotiations.
In recent days, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television producers, the organization representing the media giants, has unleashed a public relations blitz with full-page ads in newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times to explain its position in the dispute, which focuses on the division of revenue from digital downloads and online streaming of feature films and TV shows.
Swarm of reruns
Still, the writers' early public relations coup was highlighted in a survey released last week by Pepperdine's Graziadio School of Business and Management. The survey found that 63 percent of the public sided with the writers; 4 percent backed the entertainment conglomerates; and 33 percent were unsure.
"I am surprised at the success the writers have had in garnering such a significant amount of public support since the strike started," says David M. Smith, a professor and labor economist at Pepperdine. "In part, I think it is the result of a general skepticism that people have for companies when power is this concentrated. But whatever the reason, that kind of public sentiment plus the economic disruption that the strike has already caused can serve as a powerful economic leverage - and bodes well for the writers in ongoing negotiations."
The guild's most visible success in disrupting studio operations has come in network TV, where late-night programs such as NBC's Tonight Show with Jay Leno and CBS's Late Show with David Letterman have been in reruns for two weeks.
Series casualties
Meanwhile, more than 20 prime-time series have shut down production since the strike started. On Friday, ABC's Grey's Anatomy, one of TV's most popular series with 20 million viewers a week, suspended production.
Other successful network series that have been stopped in their tracks and will run out of original episodes by the end of February include ABC's Desperate Housewives, and NBC's 30 Rock, and The Office.
"If Tina Fey and Steve Carell [the stars of 30 Rock and The Office, respectively] are not going to work, NBC has big problems - and that's the case at all the networks and cable channels, thanks in a large way to the support that the screen actors have shown," said Rafael Alvarez, a writer-producer on the NBC police drama Life. Alvarez, a former Sun reporter and staff writer on HBO's The Wire, is a member of the guild's media relations committee in Los Angeles.
The studios suffered their first major casualty on the feature film front Friday when Columbia Pictures announced an indefinite delay in production of Angels & Demons, a prequel to The Da Vinci Code directed by Ron Howard.
Changing landscape
The guild's East Coast and West Coast chapters have been effective in setting up picket lines stacked with stars and keeping members from crossing lines, Gomery said. One of the guild's most extensive efforts came Nov. 9 when 5,000 members picketed at Fox's Pico Avenue studio entrance, temporarily shutting down a major street.
Nevertheless, some analysts question whether such traditional union strategies can ultimately win out in the face of the vast array of new technological and cultural forces changing the face of media.
"The writers' early success is somewhat of a surprise," said Krishna Jayakar, a media economist at Pennsylvania State University. "But, frankly, I was even more surprised that they chose to strike in the first place at this time of such fluid and unpredictable change in the business of television."
Jayakar said the concentration of power works to the studios' advantage in a long struggle. "When you only have to get six or seven CEOs - not 50 - into a room, you can be much more united in your strategy and tactics. "
The union, he said, is in a less certain position because the model of "centralized distribution of television programming" is changing - and it is not clear where labor will fit in on the new landscape.
Reality to the rescue
Fox is the network most likely to succeed - at least in the short term - because it has the most popular reality show on television, American Idol, set to return in January. Reality shows do not rely on writers the way sitcoms and dramas do, so producers of reality TV can continue delivering new episodes despite the strike.
Fox has already shuffled its January lineup, pulling the serialized thriller 24 from the schedule because it has only eight episodes on hand and the network does not want to frustrate viewers with an unresolved story line. Fox plans multiple episodes of American Idol each week, along with a wall-to-wall lineup of reality shows.
The last writers' strike in 1988 lasted 22 weeks and cost the film and TV industries an estimated $500 million. Videocassette technology was then the industry norm, and the union failed to negotiate aggressively when it came to the largely untapped market of DVDs. As a result, writers today receive only 4 cents on every DVD.
The guild has vowed not to make the same mistake with new media this time. Although union members get a share of profits from digital downloads, they receive nothing when series are streamed on advertiser-supported network and cable channel Web sites - the leading form of TV distribution in new media.
"Simply put, what the Writers Guild is asking for has no precedent," the studio alliance's newspaper ads say in addressing the issue of compensation for streamed video. "No labor agreement in history has given writers, actors or directors a portion of advertising dollars."
The most recent ads Friday stressed that writers receive some new-media revenue but are seeking what alliance members characterize as excessive increases in the range of 200 percent to 700 percent. "There is no way these increases can be deemed reasonable," the ads say.
Black eye for CBS?
The writers should get some good news tomorrow when results of a strike authorization vote by 500 members at CBS News is announced. The newsroom workers are not likely to immediately walk off the job, but they are expected to give leadership the approval to call a strike - and that means CBS will be fighting on another front.
But while the public is squarely on the side of the writers for now, that could change quickly once popular TV series disappear.
"The big question now," says Maryland's Gomery, "is who blinks next when they go back to the table on Nov. 26."
david.zurawik@baltsun.com