 |
|
|
| |
Reality TV: LA's Latest Sweatshop... And Why You Should Care
|
6104 Reads
|
|
|
|
| |
How would you feel about working 6 months of straight 20 hour days with only a handful of days off? With NO overtime pay, despite OT being mandated by state law? Of being told your start date is being pushed off three weeks, but your delivery date is being pushed up six weeks? How about not getting a humane 8-10 hours a day to sleep and see your family, even though other workers on the same project are guaranteed at least that much by contract? Oh yeah, and you don't get ANY health insurance or contributions to your pension, either.
So what are you doing in this sweatshop? Making Air Jordans? Clothes for KMart? Glow-in-the-dark condoms for truck stops?
Nope. You're writing, editing or producing reality TV, the most popular -- and profitable -- programming for FOX, CBS, ABC, NBC, Bravo, TLC and other networks.
This week, the WGA -- Writer's Guild of America -- announced that it is doing something about it. And here's why you should care, especially if you're an Angeleno in the entertainment business...
|
|
Reality TV is seriously profitable for the networks -- shows like "American Idol," "The Apprenticed," "Survivor," and even "Average Joe" and even "The Simple Life" earn profit margins as high as 75 percent (versus 18-20 percent for scripted shows) for the networks.
Let's face it, a prime time hour is a prime time hour. And whether you fill that hour with a show that cost $2 million an episode or $500,000 an episode, you, Mister Network, still can command hundreds of thousand of dollars for each 30 second spot ($800Gs or more for "Idol," even $200Gs for "The Bachelor"). And more in reruns. And on DVD.
But the networks have set up a sweatshop model to get these shows made by getting around the WGA contracts that govern scripted TV, animation and even game shows. They've essentially told their suppliers to deliver shows but "we don't want to know how you're doing it." Arms-length. Don't ask who's getting screwed. Don't tell.
WGA president Dan Petrie, Jr. told Daily Variety:
"This is the most aggressive organizing effort the guild has undertaken since its founding," WGA West prexy Daniel Petrie Jr. said Monday. "The secret about reality TV isn't that it's scripted, which it is; the secret is that reality TV is a 21st-century telecommunications industry sweatshop."
The funny and inexcusable part of the network's behavior in the reality TV world is that these same networks -- on these same shows -- abide by their agreements with the Editor's Guild, IATSE, SOC, the Teamsters, even AFTRA. Professionals covered by those agreements get contractual turnaround times (at least X hours between wrap and when you have to be back on the set). They get overtime -- per state law (and gladly take it when they can get it) but it's their choice. They get health insurance and pension benefits.
So why not the writers? Because the networks can get away with stiffing them -- at least for now.
(BTW, here's my full disclosure stuff: I'm not in the WGA at the moment, although I will be eventually. I'm not currently working in reality TV, although I used to write for an HGTV series. I wrote scripts for a pop culture second-stringer and got a whopping $350 an episode for the privilege of hearing her butcher my words. I ran entertainment programming teams at Netscape and AOL. I am a produced screenwriter and have written episodic TV. I am currently taking meetings about reality shows and a couple of screenplays. I like long walks on the beach, and... er, sorry.)
But reality's not scripted!
"Why is the WGA getting into this?" you ask. "Reality TV doesn't use writers!"
Wanna bet? How do you think 500 hours of raw footage gets turned into 42 minutes of weirdly-compelling prime time TV? There are as many titles as there are people in this sweatshop, but they're all basically storytellers -- and that's why they should be brought into the Guild. They're called everything from Story Editors, to Story Producers, to Producers, to Field Producers, to Preditors (Producer-Editor), to Segment Producers, to "Hey, you... the PA. Yeah, you. Go take notes about this conversation and find the narrative thread for me." Even video editors, many of whom are working under Editors Guild agreements are writing for reality shows. They're crafting the story, and need to command the respect that writers should command.
How many people are we talking about? From Variety:
Each reality show usually has a "story staff" of three to seven; average pay is about half the WGA minimum for a primetime network show... The guild said it attracted more than 500 people to an organizing meeting last month and has received nearly 1,000 signed authorization cards from writers, producers and editors who work in reality and want to be repped by the WGA West. It also has sent a demand letter for recognition to all the major reality production companies; none has yet signed.
I was at that meeting and it was pretty damned cool. Naturally, producers are bellowing that this will bankrupt them. But the prodcos will step up when the networks come to their senses and agree that writers are people, too. The networks will pay what they need to, making the prodcos whole. How much money are we talking about? On a show budgeted at $500,000 per episode, it's 30 percent of the writing staff salaries. Let's say $50G to $85G as an estimate. Take it out of the $56 million Viacom --- which owns CBS, MTV and other networks -- paid Sumner Redstone last year. Most TV networks are owned by a handful of major companies: Time Warner, Viacom, Universal/NBC and GE. They can afford it. It was just a few years ago when writers on hugely-popular and profitable animated shows like "The SImpsons" weren't covered by the Guild (hard to believe, isn't it?). The networks said they couldn't afford the WGA. But they finally agreed, and they're doing just fine now.
But this organizing effort is about more than money. It's about humane working conditions. Spend a few minutes with reality show folks and you'll hear horror stories. My favorite -- in its sheer contempt for a show's staff -- is about the story producers who were told to do interviews with show participants after a challenge, and were left in the Australian Outback alone all night. And we won't even mention then A-list producer who swung by the edit bays in his new Porsche and ordered his editors to work all night without overtime to put together a promo for the network -- that he never even picked up. And those are the tip of a very large iceberg. A friend of mine had six days at home last year between February and Thanksgiving, when he walked off the show that was killing him. How many 20 hour days could you work before you total your car on the way home to catch two hours of sleep before you have to be back on location?
The showrunners on these shows are trying their best to protect their staffs, but until the networks and the holding companies pony up what's really a small amount of money, the sweatshop won't become a productive and humane workshop.
But they have to. As Petrie said, again in Variety:
"The creative men and women who make reality television possible work without health and pension benefits or minimum salary protections or residuals," Petrie said. "They often work under oppressive conditions, among them near universal indifference to and noncompliance with state and federal overtime laws. The Writers Guild is committed to seeing the end of this 'Holly-Mart.' "
So why should you care about the WGA and reality TV?
If you're in TV, in any capacity, you should care a lot. This organizing effort is attracting support from the WGA's big scripted guns because they realize the networks could implement this sweatshop model in scripted, too. Then studios could try it for features. And if they can force writers who want to work to work without guild protection, they could lean on grips, DPs, drivers, loaders, riggers -- anyone. What would that do to your job?
The networks and their parent congloms are willing to give the technical staffs and talent fair wages and rational (by Hollywood standards) working conditions -- for now. The storytellers deserve nothing less than comparable wages, fair titles, health and pension benefits, and decent working conditions.
Time to bust this sweatshop.
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| Posted by: LeeWatters on Friday, June 24, 2005 - 01:53 AM
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
