Watch with Kristin – Strikewatch: Heartbreaking Office News
Greg Daniels, executive producer/showrunner and writer of The Office on the Writer’s Guild strike. Of note:
“The Office is a perfect example of a show that has a vested interest in the issues on the table. We’re one of the highest downloads on iTunes. We made a lot of money there, and the creative people didn’t see any of it. And this is the future of the television business. People are going to sit in front of a box that has computer guts inside and watch their shows, and just because it’s not called a TV, it doesn’t apply to our contract. All we’re saying is that it’s the same thing. We’re watching the same show from our couch or from our chair on a screen, and just ’cause it’s delivered through the Internet, we’re not [being compensated for it].”
and
“You know, we had 7 million downloads on iTunes. We are the big draw on NBC.com. We did webisodes before anybody did webisodes. We won the Daytime Emmy for our webisodes. None of this stuff did we get paid for and, you know, this is the future of TV. We’ve seen the future because we’ve kind of lived it, and so we’re very much aware that the business model is fantastic for the companies. The ad rates are much higher for Internet ads than they are for TV ads, because you can’t skip ’em. You have to watch ’em, and they can tailor them to the consumers. So, they’re very valuable ads.”
Here’s hoping that this dispute can be resolved intelligently. Nothing is more awesome than getting paid for online content.