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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32966 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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Some data about how oppressed the struggling worker masses are (https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/wga-contract-inflation-minimums-1235564920/):

The current guild minimum for a TV writer-producer is $7,412 per week. On a network show, the median writer-producer works between 35-40 weeks, for a total of $259,420 to $296,480, if that writer is paid minimum. Most experienced writers can negotiate something above that through their agents — and for showrunners and executive producers, it’s well above that.

Schedules are shorter on streaming shows, which produce fewer episodes, according to data released earlier this month by the guild. The median writer-producer on those shows works 20-24 weeks, for a minimum salary range of $148,240 to $177,888.

Staff writers — the lowest-level writers — do not get script fees, and they also earn significantly lower weekly minimums. The median staff writer on a network show works 29 weeks for a wage of $131,834, while the median staff writer on a streaming show works 20 weeks for $90,920.

In other words, their minimum wages are about 1.5x to 3x country's median wages for essentially half-time work.

I don't think it is bad for anyone to earn a lot of money, but given that the number of decent quality shows has been extremely low for many years now, and most of those that had decent quality have been based on existing literary work, what it seems to be there is extremely overpaid bunch of people producing a very low-quality product. Still, I am sure eventually they'd get what they want - this time - because AIs aren't ready to produce scripts yet. But in 5-10 years. given the immense savings it promises? I can totally see it.

In other words, their minimum wages are about 1.5x to 3x country's median wages for essentially half-time work.

But these aren't steady jobs. A writer might have that job for 6 weeks and is then on the hunt for another gig. It pays well, when it happens, but it's not dependable like most lower paying jobs are.

There's a lot of low-paying jobs which aren't steady. Plumbers, electricians, gardeners, locksmiths, etc. - they all depend on work flow day to day and might be subject to dry spells. So it's not unique in any way, a lot of non-salaried jobs are like that.

Or because the production and distribution pipelines are much more global now they adapt by investing content from other production centers + some scab work to pick up the slack.

Just the other day news came that netflix further increased its content budget for new Korean dramas to $2.5b over the next 4 years. Maybe more news in that vein will come in the coming weeks/months.

I'd love to see more international content in places like Netflix. There are many decent works done outside the US and I am too lazy to find ways to discover them independently...

I get the opposite impression on quality. We have been in a true golden age of high quality shows for the last decade. HBO alone has put out hit after hit.

I also take issue with the framing of the workers wages as “overpaid”. In union negotiations it’s an argument about how to split the pie and while 200k might sound like a lot to some the fact is Hollywood is extremely profitable. Plus if we want to talk “overpaid” Iger alone is making $27 million a year and seems like a juicer target.

Well, obviously we have very different tastes. I am looking at the list of HBO shows (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HBO_original_programming) and what I'd be at least somewhat interested in, of recent work, let's say past 2010?

  • House of the Dragon - yeah, kinda, somewhat weak sauce, but there are some strong points, wouldn't put is as a hit, but as a decent offering

  • Westworld - started awesome, went downhill fast, dropped it.

  • His Dark Materials - based on existing work, kinda decent though didn't see the last season yet

  • Game of Thrones - based on existing work, we all know how it ended in an utter disaster once Martin lost interest in finishing it

  • Silicon Valley - ok, this one is a hit. Full points for this one, no questions asked.

  • Perry Mason - didn't see it, may be interested, depending on how woke it'd be (I have no hope for non-woke, but whether it would be tolerable?) - conditional, on the strength of the franchise

This is basically it, feel zero interest to the rest of it. Maybe it's a golden age, but not for me.

In union negotiations it’s an argument about how to split the pie and while 200k might sound like a lot to some the fact is Hollywood is extremely profitable

Oh, I absolutely don't think them grabbing a share of the corporate profits is something wrong. I think their product is crap (ok, 90% crap, with a rare gem buried in it), but if it finds the market, then they deserve a share in it. But I personally wouldn't care either way - because for me, their product is not valuable.

Barry is pretty decent. Curb your Enthusiasm is just high quality. Boardwalk empire was also pretty decent.

Perry Mason - didn't see it, may be interested, depending on how woke it'd be (I have no hope for non-woke, but whether it would be tolerable?) - conditional, on the strength of the franchise

It's pretty woke. I watched it all, but would treat the woker scenes as commercial breaks. I wasn't really invested. I generally like Matthew Rhys work, as a kid I loved Perry Mason.

I watched the first season and will embark on S2 soonish. What was woke about S1?

S1 was less woke than S2.

S2 continues with the diversity and adds more girl-bossing and sexual degeneracy.

BTW I notice I can name a bunch of hits I liked pre-2010 easily: The Wire, The Sopranos, Rome, Carnivale, Oz, Angles in America, John Adams. Oh, forgot one - add Chernobyl to the hits, it's surprisingly decently done for an US series about USSR.

Nothing stops us from concluding that BOTH the execs AND the writers are overpaid considering their actual role and the value they bring to the table.

I'll go a step further and say that all the people involved in creating most TV shows are overpaid, except probably the day-to-day hands-on workers handling all the technical aspects of production (lighting, camera work, set-building, audio mixing, etc. etc.) that actually allows the production to function.

Being maximally uncharitable to the writers and execs, I'm saying that most short-form media these days seems extremely 'paint-by-numbers' where the actors show up for a couple hours and do some easy line reads, any mistakes can be fixed in post, cinematography and audio choices are generally rote and uninspired, and as mentioned elsewhere, the writing is either bland or actively bad.

Big names get paid well because they draw eyeballs, that's fair enough, but so many productions end up giving a 'going through the motions' feeling, as though everything is being produced on an assembly line, with the only major difference being what coat of paint gets slapped on the end product.

Maybe the pay for the professionals involved should reflect that of factory workers.

I dunno.

Id question if the number of decent shows is actually low these days.

We may be past Peak TV but there's still plenty of stuff to watch on cable.

There have always been hacks and pandering but TV is actually very competitive and, unlike the films, it isn't all cookie cutter PG stuff like Marvel or cookie cutter PG stuff aspiring to be Marvel (why not make a Universal Horror franchise instead of an action-horror abomination? The money was right there...)

Euphoria probably doesn't deserve its budget (Sam Levinson should be kissing Zendayas feet) but that show as a film would be relegated to the $10 million indie ghetto.

It's fine if you just treat it as a melodrama.

But its reported budget is totally out of whack with its quality imo. As I said, Levinson is benefiting from a Zendaya premium (as well as the view that it's an insightful or trend-setting show, which I think has kind of died down after all of the criticism of S2)

But it’s not just special effects-laden period pieces shot in exotic locations that are hastening price increases. Even contemporary dramas with lesser-known stars aren’t always cheap: HBO’s “Euphoria” is said to have cost around $11 million per episode, for example

That's Game of Thrones money. Half of that sounds unbelievable.

Where do they live though? Wages w/o considering their COL is likely missing something.

That said, there's probably a networking bonus for people who live there (meet other writers, producers, directors, etc.). So doing remote work isn't totally feasible for that (there are small day-to-day interactions that even a quarterly convention/meeting cannot capture the value of).

Wages w/o considering their COL is likely missing something.

COL is not some natural phenomenon that strikes at random. COL is high because rich people live there and bid up prices for resources and services.

Right, but that's not the point. My point is that simply seeing a person making much above the median doesn't tell us very much. The implication is that they are rich, but if there are reasons for not leaving, then their QoL can be on par with that of those who make less.

Well, they could also spend 90% of it on cocaine and live in absolute squalor, you can't ever know. I think you still can see that these are pretty well-paid bunch.

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