The environment doesn't change that radically. You are still going to go home at night and NBC is going to be there, ABC and CBS will still be there.
The agendas on the management side of the table now are not in sync like they used to be because you have vastly different entities supplying programming to networks.
Drama or comedy programming is still the surest way for advertisers to reach a mass audience. Once that changes, all bets are off.
People do have viewing patterns, and you disrupt those at your own peril. That's something that everybody learned after 1988. The numbers have gone down every year since that strike. Big time.
There are professional negotiators working for the writers and the actors, but basically you've got the writers and actors negotiating against businessmen. That's why you get rhetoric.
I think most people don't react well to being screamed at. It's counterproductive.
The most positive step is to try to expand the employment base by making it, if not economically friendly, at least not economically disastrous, for studios to take on deficits.
Their argument is that most shows are losers, which is true, but it's also disingenuous to say, 'We are not going to take the risk unless it is totally covered by the few successful shows that are out there.'
The ad revenues still go up because nothing dependably delivers the eyeballs that successful series do.
When it went on the air, the sales department hated it. It was the highest advertising pullout show in the history of NBC. At the early focus groups, people were saying, 'Who are these people? Why should we watch them?
There was an interesting article in Los Angeles Magazine about women directors. A woman director makes one bad independent film and her career is over. Guys tend to get an opportunity to learn from their mistakes.
I would say that if you really wished to be a working member of the community, don't go out on strike because then there's no work and no potential of work.
People recognize certain things, like 'D' means 'this dialogue stinks.' We're dealing with shows that are written here, shot in New York and posted back here. Accurate communication is a necessity.
If you're going to vote on a television contract, there is a certain rationality to saying that the same structures that are applied to Health Plan participation should be placed on the right to vote on a strike.
Everybody knows things are not the same. The people running the TV end of a major vertically integrated company know how much money a successful show can make.
