Enough thinking, more linking:
trekweb has coverage of the Star Trek Theme Picket... the first pencils have been delivered... UH has this week's events... KARE11 has coverage of the Minnesota WGA info-action... the WSJ has noticed fan interest in the strike... UH provides info on the AMPTP's future plans: And Nikki Finke, who probably needs one by now, posts this martini recipe, credited to screenwriter Nian Aster:
The Striking Writer Martini
2 oz vodka "to fortify against the cold Strike Winter"
2 oz cranberry juice "as the writers are seeing red"
1 oz sweet and sour mix "they’re grateful for solidarity in this bitter struggle"
4 drops vanilla (or use vanilla vodka) "to symbolize the 4 cent raise they asked for"
"There’s no cherry in this drink, as writers aren’t getting a piece of the pie. Garnish with a half a redvine, as they hope to be back on the set soon."
OK, Martini break over. In business news, something called the Television Critics Association Press Tour (it promotes mid-season shows) has been cancelled. Apparently, the networks didn't like spending all that money on critics anyway. Take what they give you, peons.
UH has a post titled "Links: NBC Under Siege Edition!" -- some of the same stuff I had yesterday, about NBC quietly refunding advertiser money, but they also have a link to coverage of the picket of NBC in Second Life -- and a mention of "the FCC nonsense going on," which would be part two of tonight's installment of When Blog Worlds Collide! (Action links there, follow... and, let's see. There's more on advertising interests at the Vanity Fair blog, this latimes story is interesting, and so is this:
Viacom "transforms" into a winner
Then there’s Viacom (VIAB). It is the only media conglomerate in the black this year. Shares have gained more than 6 percent. It’s a remarkable turnaround for the company, which was a poor performer in 2006, its first year since it split from former corporate sibling CBS.
Viacom, which owns cable networks Nickelodeon and MTV and the movie studios Paramount and DreamWorks SKG, has enjoyed a strong year both on the boob tube and at the box office. Ratings have improved at many of Viacom’s cable networks, helping the company to report a revenue increase of 10 percent from its networks division through the first three quarters of this year.
At the multiplex, Viacom has been the top dog....
Didn't I just read yesterday that
Something’s rotten in the state of Viacom. Parent Company of the popular cable television networks MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon, among others, informed their permanent freelance workers that their benefits will be drastically slashed, just in time for the holidays. Today, Dec. 10th at 3pm, MTV Networks freelancers plan to stage a walkout in response to these cutbacks, outside the MTV building on 1515 Broadway. The contractors have made T-shirts emblazoned with the logo: "Viacom Freelancers Get Cancer Too."
Why, yes. Yes I did. Hmm. I wonder what the story with that is?
It's entirely possible that this is an appropriate place to put this quote from Atrios:
While there are certainly rational economic actor arguments for why companies oppose any labor concessions, I'm increasingly convinced they (and the "they" are not abstract profit maximizing entities, but people who run them) frequently do so simply because they're assholes, and they're competitive assholes, and they see it as a competition they need to win no matter what the cost.
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