Those poor, poor media corporations
Writers have heard this a thousand times. When they’re talking about their revenue, everything corporate is up, up, up. When they’re talking about writers’ fees, the cupboard is bare.
What Does the Protagonist Want?
Writers have heard this a thousand times. When they’re talking about their revenue, everything corporate is up, up, up. When they’re talking about writers’ fees, the cupboard is bare.
© 2024 Todd Alcott All rights reserved. Website Design. Search Engine Optimization. Log in
Have they pulled the RIAA trick of redefining “profits are growing, but not quite as quickly as projected” as “we’re losing money!” yet?
The bottom line is money. Corporations want to report profits and growth to the shareholders. If it means cheating writers out of revenues, cutting employee benefits, or sending jobs overseas for the lower salaries to look good on paper to the shareholders, corporations do not hesitate to do so. As long as it doesn’t affect the corporate presidents, VPs, and directors, of course.
My own employer reports significant growth every year but every year, the benefits are reduced and the raises come nowhere close to the increases in cost of living.
In the mid-80s there was the music-delivery shift from analogue to digital. Record prices doubled overnight because the record companies insisted that the startup costs of making CDs was crippling them. CDs were so expensive to produce, they complained, that they couldn’t even afford to raise the artist’s royalty fees along with the now-doubled ticket price. The vinyl plants all closed and everything was put onto CD, and the unit price for an album dropped to half the price of what it was before. Yet the MSRP only went up, up, up and the artist’s royalty remained exactly the same. With an album costing twice as much as a movie, the record companies were shocked — shocked! — to learn that consumers were turning to illegal downloads to get their music. Now that the entire industry is turning digital, the cost of unit production has dropped to near zero, yet strangely, costs remain high (and climbing) and artist’s royalties remain — wait for it — at the exact same level as before. And the labels all bemoan their betrayal by a fickle public.
Wait — you people are still using typewriters? There’s your mistake right there. You’ve got to get with the times. Maybe write all your scripts on Blackberries.
Question to the studio – Didja make $ on that?
If yes – Then give the Writer’s their cut.
Why should this be any different than anything else?