Writers Strike Continues

As the second week of the WGA strike comes to a close, United Hollywood has a post explaining when the strike will end. When is that? When it is in the financial interest of the studios for it to do so:

The studios have forecasted how much they will lose, how much they will save, what offer they will come back to the table with and what date that offer will be presented.

This strike comes down to a pro forma income statement, and clearly the majority of studios or at least the most powerful studios have decided that from a financial standpoint, it is not yet time to end this strike.

But we can be making it hurt them. We can make them watch people across the country come to a greater understanding of the way corporations work to amass their own profits by denying their employees a fair share. And Jonathan Tasini has information on how to help:

Anne Sweeney, President, Disney-ABC Television Group: 818-560-1000
                The Walt Disney Company, 500 S. Buena Vista Street
                Burbank CA  91521

Kevin Reilly, President, Fox Entertainment:  310-369-1000
                Fox Broadcasting, 10201 West Pico Blvd.
                Los Angeles, CA  90064

Bruce Rosenblum, President, Warner Bros. Television Group: 818-954-6000
                Warner Bros Studios, 3400 Riverside Drive
                Burbank, CA  91505

Philippe Dauman, President/CEO, Viacom: 212-258-6000
                1515 Broadway
                New York, NY  10036

Leslie Moonves, President/CEO, CBS Corporation: 212-975-4321
                CBS, 51 West 52nd St.
                New York, NY  10019

Jeff Zucker, President/CEO, NBC Universal: 818-777-1000
               100 Universal City Plaza
               Universal City, CA  91608

And after you've made the calls, SEND THIS LIST TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

Points to make:

1. Writers are asking for fair compensation when content is streamed or downloaded on the Internet. Right now, writers are getting ZERO. Publishers claims that everything on-line is only promotional are just bogus--they are selling advertising on-line!!!

2. The media business is healthy. CEOs brag to Wall Street that they are making money from new media--all the better to raise money and keep the share price going up (which helps CEOs profit from generous stock options they are given) but they are hypocritically crying poverty when it comes to paying writers.

3. If you need to, you can use these statistics to show how profitable media companies are and how well the CEOs are being compensated.

If you need more background, you can go to the website of either the Writers Guild of America west or the Writers Guild of America east.