How WGA Garnered Sympathy With Winning Strike Script

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Almost from the beginning, show biz spin doctors agree, the striking writers produced a script that allowed them to win the early PR war: They created a sympathetic image of themselves, managed to get celebrity supporters on the air and their simple economic argument seemed to make more sense to the public.


The producers, meanwhile, failed to quickly develop a sympathetic public face or much of a public face at all and their economic argument seemed like a head-scratcher, several public relations executives said.


In fact, every publicist interviewed agreed that the Writers Guild of America has beaten the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers in effective communications.


But the writers could have lost the early PR war if they had relied on old labor-strike images, several said.


“I grew up in Flint, Michigan, so I’ve seen strikes where guys picket on a cold morning by standing around a burning garbage can,” said public relations executive Howard Bragman. “It’s a different picture than Jay Leno serving Krispy Kremes to his writers on the sidewalk.”


“By most measures and surveys, the guild is winning but that’s with a big caveat,” said Bragman, founder of Fifteen Minutes PR, which counts Isaiah Washington, Ricki Lake and producer Steve Tisch among its clients. “The WGA and the producers have different audiences. The producers use the business press to say that the strike will hurt profits, while the writers go to YouTube and mainstream media to reach the masses.”


The Writers Guild went on strike Nov. 5 over residual payments for new media. The producers alliance which represents the studio position claims it can’t make residual deals because revenue from new media is uncertain. Talks resumed last week.


The basic dynamics of a strike were also a factor in the perception that the writers won.


“Labor always looks like the aggrieved party in a work stoppage,” said Henry Eshelman, head of Platform Media Group, which represents YoungHollywood.com. “The studio argument seems spurious. If they made nothing or could prove they made nothing then they’d have to share nothing. The fact that you can watch an episode of ‘Pushing Daisies’ with commercials on the Internet, knowing that the studios get revenue for those and the writers nothing, is pretty damning.”


But Michael Levine, founder of Levine Communications Office, believes the producers have better arguments, even though the writers have won on the emotional front.


“I think on the logical side the producers are winning,” Levine said. “Their logic resonates. They say, ‘There’s no money, and when there’s money, we can negotiate.’ But emotion trumps logic, always. Therefore the public relations victory goes to the writers.”


However, the studios are clearly making money on new-media products.


“If you go to NBC.com, and you want to watch your favorite show, you can see they’re selling ad space,” said Amy Levy, head of her namesake agency. “If the Writers Guild got a hold of the NBC.com rate card, they would have something to talk about. Because somebody is measuring that audience.”


Any attempt to blame the strike on the writers’ demands for unreasonable sums has not succeeded.


“The studios have positioned greed as the driving force behind the writers’ walkout,” said Levy, who represents writer-director Paul Mazursky and the ScreamFest Horror Film Festival. “The public is siding with the writers. People are beginning to realize that the writers are actually not asking for that much money.”


On the tactical level, the writers have successfully overcome the negative image of labor unions. Levine said most Americans see unions as either corrupt or radical. By portraying themselves as the creators behind people’s favorite TV shows, the writers have come across as sympathetic.


On the other hand, writers as other players in Hollywood have an image as self-absorbed, artsy millionaires.


Yet the writers have conveyed the message that they’re members of the middle class. When the studios cast the writers’ demand for double royalties as greedy, the guild countered by pointing out that writers only get four cents per DVD sold and their demand was for eight cents.

“At first the public resented the writers for causing a delay in their regularly scheduled programs,” Levy said. “However, as the story has grown, the studios look like the big bad wolf and the writers are at their mercy.”



Media game

While the writers have capitalized on their strength, the studios appear as a faceless corporate presence.


“They’ve got to get a face people with names or faces to support them,” said Levine, whose agency has handled Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Peter Guber and Laila Ali. “It could be a politician, a movie or TV star, or a business owner. They need somebody to make their case for them in a sympathetic way.”


The studios haven’t been effective about presenting their positions clearly.


“I haven’t heard any studio rep answer the questions or put forward their position with any degree of conviction,” Eshelman said. “Their position has no face.”


In contrast, the writers have recruited a growing cadre of celebrity endorsers. They include Leno, Ray Romano, David Letterman, the “Ugly Betty” cast and the women of “The View.”


Writers were joined on the picket lines not only by their show biz colleagues, but by political leaders including presidential candidate John Edwards. The big names add up to lots of news coverage for the writers.


“The local media has generously provided the necessary airtime for this story,” Levy noted.


She also believes that the studios have yet to articulate their economic reasoning.


“They need to explain why they are in this position that it costs so much money to market these films. It’s a gamble,” Levy explained. “I understand the studios take gambles, that they pay for prints and advertising. I know how hard it is to launch an independent film. But the public is now seeing the studios as greedy.”


Eshelman and Levy both note the apparent contradiction in the studio position. They claim, in the words of an alliance spokeswomen, that “the impact of the Internet, cell phones and other wireless devices is still an unknown.” Yet at the same time, they tell shareholders and advertisers that the Internet has a measurable, profitable impact.


The PR pros agree the general public won’t harbor negative feelings after the strike.


But Bragman sees real disadvantages to the strike.


“It wasn’t a strong TV season to begin with,” he said. “Viewership was down as much as 10 percent. People have a lot of options and they may not come back to TV. Twenty years ago, this wasn’t an issue, but now TV is a mature industry. They can’t afford to tarnish this asset.”

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