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Michael Eisner Clarifies His "Stupid" Strike Comment
Michael Eisner by by Steve Granitz/WireImage.com
One of the first "suits" to venture forth with an incendiary sound bite about the WGA strike — he summed up the work stoppage as "stupid" — former Disney CEO Michael Eisner qualifies that quote in the latest New York Times Magazine. "What I was driving at was that it was a foolish time to have a strike over a business and a marketplace that is not evolved enough to even know if there is a business or a marketplace there," he says.
Eisner claims that compensating writers for online downloads is not the big issue at hand, saying, "The [reuse] areas in which they are making money... I believe the producers have agreed to make a deal." Rather, he says the major bone of contention is material created for the Internet, "which is neither profitable nor is it clear in what direction it's going to go." He says there is "not a profit pie" to be shared, "not a crumb to spare for anything."
To illustrate his point, Eisner says that Prom Queen, a series he produced for the Internet, made only "a couple of thousand daollars," and that its sequel "lost money."
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Nov 18, 2007 9:41 AM
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And if anyone actually watched that stupid Prom Queen they'd know why. It was an inconvenient format, a minute a day for months. And you couldn't also catch it on TV. Of course you can lose money on something never shown on TV. It takes the two medias combined IMHO. Plus PQ was pretty stupid. I've seen way better stuff on CW. And it couldn't hold a candle to most primetime programming on the major networks. I think Eisner lost his touch years ago, many many years ago.
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Nov 18, 2007 12:04 PM
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When CEOs like Eisner makes $100 million plus a year from the movies of course there isn't enough of the profit pie to share. And that's before the movie shows a profit.
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Nov 18, 2007 12:14 PM
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What a maroon!
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Nov 18, 2007 12:50 PM
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So if there's no profit to be made, the downside of offering the writers a percentage of the profits is...what exactly? If you don't make any money, neither do they.
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Nov 18, 2007 1:01 PM
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I agree with alf above. I can do the math; 4% of zero is zero, so what's the harm in giving the writers a (well-deserved) percentage? Sigh. With attitudes like this, no wonder no true negotiation is going on.
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Nov 18, 2007 1:13 PM
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I completely agree with you guys: this is exactly what Denis Leary mentioned too. If there was actually no profit to be had, then the studios would have simply said, "Here, we'll make a deal, you can have say, 4%" And no matter how you cut it, 4% of nothing is nothing. So when it comes down to it, it's quite obvious that there is some "profit pie" (to quote a blowhard) that can easily be given to people who deserve it, given that they are greatly responsible for that "profit pie" even existing.
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Nov 18, 2007 1:55 PM
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There are reports that the writers are
insisting on residuals when their show
is streamed whether there is any revenue
or not.
Not all networks have advertising on
their streamed shows. So no profit
there. The writer position that I am
familiar with is that streaming will
destroy reruns on TV and thus lower
their income. DVD's were supposed to do
that and didn't.
Of course most shows never generate any
residuals at all. There aren't any
residuals for the 1st replay, thats part
of the flat payment. And most shows are
canceled before they generate enough
product for syndication*. So we are not
talking about "most" writers here.
*The only exception I am aware of is
shows which have a not-too-small, loyal,
core audience. Such as Firefly, Dead
Like Me, and also some of the shows
which appeal to certain ethnic groups.
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Nov 18, 2007 4:11 PM
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I agree with Eisner here. The internet medium is too young (in terms of video) to start dividing up profits. It still hasn't been determined how to profit for the medium. It's a completely different ball-game. Technology advances faster and faster. You want to provide something that an audience will like, but at the same time you want to have enough control that you can find a way to turn a profit. How exactly can these two things (technology that puts consumers in control, and creators who need control to turn a profit) be reconciled? That's still being worked on. Until this happens I feel that any minimal profits that are had need to be reinvested into finding solutions for the problems internet video has.
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Nov 18, 2007 6:10 PM
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Ah... Has anyone actually heard of the show "Prom Queen?" How about picking a show that gets downloaded, that actually makes a profit, instead of some show I had to IMDB just to see what the hell it was.
Is he actually saying Hereos, 24, Veronica Mars, Buffy, the Law & Order franchise shows don't make money off of internet downloads? That there is no profit to be made there? Then why on Websites for the shows do you show commericals now? Are those commercial spaces free? Are the advertisers not paying the studios for that commercial space? Wow! I guess there is such a thing as a free lunch.
Sure a show no one's even heard of, that hasn't done well, probably doesn't make a profit. But that's like saying don't pay screenwriters money for movies they write b/c you never know if a movie will be a hit or not. Don't give them a percentage of ticket sales b/c everyone may hate the movie.
What's stupid is the comment, not the strike.
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Nov 18, 2007 9:36 PM
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No report I have seen has even mentioned
content created for the internet. If its
a factor its a small one. Its internet
viewing thats at the front.
Do not conflate streaming video and
down-loads. Downloads you keep.
Streaming video you don't. There is no
argument that there should be residuals
for downloads, only about what rate. The
proper is rate is not clear. Re-runs get
different rates for residuals than do DVD's.
About streaming video there isn't any
agreement at all as yet. And to suggest
the ads on the web site (NOT on a
program)generate revenue that should be
subject to residuals is absurd. Besides
its chump change.
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Nov 18, 2007 10:16 PM
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"What I was driving at was that it was a foolish time to have a strike over a business and a marketplace that is not evolved enough to even know if there is a business or a marketplace there"
- that's the stupid part, not the strike. I'm sorry but whenever I watch a streaming video from a network site, there's an ad or several that goes along with it. I'm not talking about ads on the website. The network gets revenue and no one but them gets paid. And people pay for Itunes downloads. Some shows have millions of downloads and the money adds up. This producers' talking point about 'we don't know if we make money' is complete bull and they know it.
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Nov 19, 2007 12:41 AM
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Indeed, the issue with streaming content is the unskippable ads embedded in the video -- and advertisers pay a premium for those, since they can't be skipped, plus there's a real count for the number of viewings. And when the writers talk about new web content, they mean things like the webisodes for The Office and BSG. Not only did they get no residuals for those, the writers didn't get paid anything for providing the extra content. Again, anyone who watched those webisodes will tell you that there were unskippable ads embedded in the content.
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Nov 19, 2007 1:40 AM
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Whether you love your job or not, you should be paid for working. Otherwise, why should you give your blood, sweat and tears away for free?
It's true that some shows are downloaded millions of times, for $1.99 or so on iTunes for example. The show is paid for by the commercials they show for the TV broadcasts, so, who gets these millions of $2 bills?
ABC, Animal Planet and Sci-Fi Channel are just a few examples of networks that stream some or all of their episodes online for free, the catch being that at every act break, a commercial or two is shown. Again, the show is already paid for by the TV broadcast advertisers. So, if they are selling ad space, who gets this money? Don't tell me that they're using the money to pay for internet server costs and maintenance. Websites (like TVGuide.com) are paid for by typical internet advertising. Just look around.
Another thing that I haven't even seen mentioned here is free on-demand video from cable. I've seen the little shorts from my on-demand of How I Met Your Mother's Lily and Marshall's disastrous honeymoon, and while not terribly funny, I was spoonfed some ads. While I could fast forward through them, they were still there. Some entire episodes of shows are also available through on-demand, and all come with advertising. Something tells me that the writers of that old episode of Diff'rent Strokes you watched through on-demand also weren't getting residuals for the ads.
Michael Eisner is stupid. He produced original content for a standalone story that is completely unattached to any existing Disney entity. It had no stars, no big name directors or writers attached to it. So, how exactly would people have found out about this? How do you make money off of something that no one knows about? I've never heard of Prom Queen either. Comparing this disaster to replays of something produced for TV (and already paid for) is like comparing a pizza place with slave chefs to some weird place you happened across where they don't serve pizza, but raw dolphin heads. The internet is where people go to look at things they know about, want to know about or want to know more about. Why would someone choose to watch Prom Queen if they don't know one thing about it, including its very existence?
Had Eisner made money with Prom Queen, he'd still be calling this stupid. The issue is not whether or not product on the internet is turning a profit (and it definitely is), it's about giving the writers a percentage of ANY profit that they are entitled to, to reiterate what many here have already said.
I think we all know what (or who) is really "not evolved enough".
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Nov 19, 2007 4:07 AM
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"Not all networks have advertising on
their streamed shows."
Really? NBC does. ABC does. Which network doesn't have ads on their streaming content?
He seems like he's just bitter about his "Prom Queen" show.
Let's see, they didn't offer the writers anything...which meant they probably couldn't get any good talent...which meant that the show ended up sucking.
That's one of the major reasons for offering residuals. First, you can actually attract pro talent. And second, you provide the talent an incentive to make the content as good as they can so it does well and they share in the profit. Without residuals, it's just a gig for a paycheck, it pays as well whether it's successful or not.
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Nov 19, 2007 12:23 PM
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