Striking Thoughts

My good friend and one of Vivian's godfathers, Seth Meyers, is quoted by Maureen Dowd in today's New York Times. (You can actually read it for free now since the Times' goofy paid content experiment was killed recently.) The topic is the much-publicized Writers Guild strike.

In addition to being one of the funniest people I know, Seth is one of the smartest. So it should come as no surprise that Seth's comments, as reported by Dowd today, are both hilarious and strikingly true (excuse the pun).

Seth explains that he doesn't hate the studio heads:

I am a fan of studios and what I like most about them is this: They know how to make money. That’s why studios and writers are such a perfect fit. Without studios we’d be back where comedy writers were 100 years ago — in some backwoods farmhouse shouting jokes at each other in a makeshift ring, while drunken audiences throw nickels at our feet.

Without the studios and producers, Seth and the other Writers Guild members wouldn't make money. Seth could probably put together distribution deals, sell ads and run a media property. But 99.9% of the WGA members could not.

And on the flip side, TV written by the studio heads would be a crap sandwich.

The issue at hand is how money made from digital, new media distribution (i.e. internet) is shared. The writers currently get nothing. They want just a sliver. For a complete overview of their position, check out this video:

Seth and the WGA's position is the right one. They should get a piece of the new pie. But the strike is a difficult way to get what they want. 

I applaud the commitment of all the strikers (Seth, for one, stood outside for hours a day all week carrying one of those picket signs. He was dwarfed by one of those giant blow up dolls. Unfortunately, it wasn't that giant rat we've all grown to love!) But the issue is this: how much pain can the strike really inflict on the media owners? While Seth and the others go unpaid, the studios run repeats, plan reality shows and continue to sell ads and cash checks. The only way to inflict serious pain would be to strike for more than a year. But at that point, the pain to the writers would be unbearable.

One interesting mental exercise. Think about your own business. What if your key employees went on strike?

So take the internet busienss. What if software engineers unionized? What if, instead of salary and equity, they wanted residuals for all their work in all formats and media? A strike would be devastating as we don't have reruns and reality shows to run web sites.

For everyone involved in the WGA strike, I hope some sort of compromise is reached. It's nice having Seth spend more time as commissioner of our fantasy league writing amazing previews, updates and recaps. And the kids love his new-found time to play Monopoly and the memory game with them. But we'd all rather have Seth and the other writers working, making money and creating awesome content to make the world a funnier place.