David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. There, now – that wasn’t so hard, was it?
After a mere five days of talks, the Directors Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have agreed to a new contract. A joint statement was issued:
"The agreement between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the Directors Guild of America establishes an important precedent: Our industry’s creative talent will now participate financially in every emerging area of new media. The agreement demonstrates beyond any doubt that our industry’s producers are willing and able to work with the creators of entertainment content to establish fair and flexible rules for this fast-changing marketplace.
"We hope that this agreement with DGA will signal the beginning of the end of this extremely difficult period for our industry. Today, we invite the Writers Guild of America to engage with us in a series of informal discussions similar to the productive process that led us to a deal with the DGA to determine whether there is a reasonable basis for returning to formal bargaining. We look forward to these discussions, and to the day when our entire industry gets back to work."
Said contract gives the directors what the writers have wanted, including residuals for online usage of their material.
So why wouldn’t AMPTP give the same to the writers?
Of course, the Writers Guild of America has a couple of other sticking points, such as reality TV. Reality TV is directed, so the DGA is good to go there, but it’s ostensibly not written. So we’ll see if the writers hunker down on that one.