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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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