For 25 years, Hollywood's biggest studios have relied on a bespectacled former college halfback to make peace with their workers.
In overseeing some 400 labor contracts with writers, actors, film crews, musicians and scores of other professions, J. Nicholas Counter III has deftly kept Hollywood working, save for one major strike by writers in 1988. Despite his being the designated nemesis of Hollywood labor and taking the public slings and arrows that come with being the industry's chief negotiator, even his opponents can rarely recall Counter losing his cool.
But Counter's nerves are in for a big test starting next week. Formal talks begin with an increasingly restless union for about 12,000 TV and film writers, followed next year by similar negotiations with representatives of nearly 120,000 actors. At a time when digital distribution and the Internet are upending Hollywood, its talent guilds are bent on making significant strides regardless of which technologies flourish.
In addition, Counter, 67, must keep in line his own small club of powerful studio bosses. Their businesses have spread beyond the days when they were all largely film and TV operations. Now they are also involved in cable, music, the Internet, publishing, theme parks, video games and other entertainment areas. What's good for one company may not necessarily benefit another.
"Nick has got one of the toughest jobs in Hollywood, keeping not only our group together but keeping the relative peace that has existed between labor and management over so many years and over so many thorny issues," said Warner Bros. Chief Executive Barry Meyer.
"When everyone else about him is losing their cool and their heads, Nick is the rock that keeps everything in shape."
Counter's formal title is president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, a group housed in the same Encino building as the industry's trade group, the Motion Picture Assn. of America. Although Counter technically represents more than 350 film and television producers, big studios and media giants such as Warner Bros., Walt Disney Co. and News Corp. hold sway in contract talks. An 11-person board, each member holding veto power, controls the alliance.
Counter's tactics often involve putting opponents on the defensive, portraying their positions as unreasonable while rattling off statistics showing the industry's economic woes. When leaders of the Writers Guild of America recently telegraphed their demands, including securing "fair compensation" for entertainment distributed over emerging technologies, he publicly blasted them as an "assault on the industry."
