LET'S not kid ourselves. This town is so desperate to get back to work it's like that girl auditioning on "American Idol" last week, who would have gladly given Simon Cowell her dog if he'd just put her through to Hollywood.
Well, three-plus months of unemployment can strike the fear of Peter Chernin into anyone. With the Writers Guild of America leaders claiming a "huge victory" on Sunday and recommending that members ratify a new three-year agreement with studios and networks, it looks as if the 14-week writers strike could be over as soon as Wednesday. In fact, many top TV producers will be back at the grind as you read this (OK, some never really stopped, but that's another story).
Before the euphoria fades and the contractual details of the deal are forgotten like last Sunday's Super Bowl score, though, it's an appropriate time to ask: Was it worth it? Did guild leaders gain enough yardage to justify effectively shutting down the TV business and damaging the film industry, putting tens of thousands of people out of work as recession clouds darken on the horizon?
In a word, yes. Against formidable odds, some well-earned skepticism and endless carping from nonwriting workers who viewed themselves as collateral damage in a provincial border war, guild officials stuck to their guns and negotiated a contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers that, while maybe not a historic win for labor, improves some terms from the recent Directors Guild of America contract, offers a blueprint for future payouts on digital media and even eases some of the pain of the oft-lamented 1988 contract, in which writers failed to achieve their objectives despite a five-month walkout.
"It's the best deal we could have gotten under the circumstances," Howard A. Rodman, a screenwriter and member of the guild's board of directors, told me Sunday. "It accomplished the main goal we wanted when we set out on strike, which was that as the business shifted from television sets and movies to new media, we wouldn't be left behind. And we got that."
The main advance for the writers comes in the area of residual payments for material broadcast over the Internet and other digital media. As the market for network TV reruns ebbs, industry players expect Web streaming to start spitting out cash in coming years. The writers were especially sensitive about this issue because they believe they were shafted out of millions of dollars in DVD revenue as a result of home-video deals made during the 1980s.
