Another Option for Striking Writers
If the writers strike is proving anything it’s that the model that they’ve depended on for their entire careers is broken and their employers have taken advantage of them. I think just about anyone will agree with that. The problem for me is that we have two sides fighting about digital rights without anyone looking at where the online entertainment industry is actually going.
For starters, any assumption that the TV networks are raking in money from ads they run on their Web sites is fairly misguided. Yes, they make money and the sites are definitely profitable but this revenue is nothing compared to the ad dollars that have come in through television and supported this industry for generations. Television would be a drastically different place and writers would be living in near poverty if they had to rely on Internet ad revenue for all their money.
Secondly, no one seems to be talking about any parallels between TV and music. How do both the networks and writers think that they’ll actually be able to control digital entertainment when the music industry has already proven that it’s impossible?
Put simply, the future for writers is certainly not with these behemoth media companies that depend on television ad revenue. If the writers union really wanted to help them, they should not only ask for royalties but also ask for rights to the content. The future for this form of entertainment is going to be creating the destination online that has removed the most barriers for consumers and the television networks are gearing up to lose that battles (despite the positive feedback on Hulu).
What I’d really like to see is some of these kings of content take their shows and run. What if Andy Samberg posted “Dick in a Box” on his own site? Do the Daily Show writers really depend on the production capabilities of Comedy Central so much that they couldn’t take their show independent? Sure, there will be a ramp up period before these destinations start generating traffic (and, of course, not all content on TV is good enough to find an audience on the Web) but it seems like a more fruitful struggle than fighting against media companies that have historically had no interest in sharing revenue.
In fact, Om Malik at GigaOm writes that this strike could be a tipping point for online content producers as the networks look to find other ways to find compelling programing. There is a supply and demand question here and it certainly isn’t in favor of the writers.
