Sony Jeopardy! Union and Studio Egos in the Way? WGA STRIKE INTERVIEWS
As the Cable industry lobbies the FCC to bolster future opportunities, the motion picture and television industry fight over the future is underway on entertainment’s frontlines: The Studios.
Alex Trbek happily is in Jeopardy! at Sony Studio in Culver City daily. During a taping of his quiz show yesterday, he told me he hopes striking studio writers will not be in “jeopardy” much longer.
I am in Los Angeles to speak at the closing panel of the Kelsey Interactive Local Media conference kicking off today and have been taking in the “entertainment captal of the world” sights. While enjoying the stars’ footprints at Mann’s Theater Monday, I was invited to be part of the studio audience of Jeopardy! The Sony ticket rep regrettted nevertheless that he had no sitcom tappings to offer me, due to the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike.
When I arrived at Sony Studios to enjoy a complementary viewing of Jeaopardy!, followed by a $25 dollar fee studio tour, I was required to break the striking WGA writer picket lines at Sony Entertainment gates.
I asked one of the about 30 strikers how he felt that I ”broke” the picket line to enjoy Sony Entertainment. Luvh Rakhe, one of about a dozen staff writers for ABC’s Caveman series, told me writers don’t have “bones to pick” with the executives on the lot.
Rakhe did express his displeasure with Sony corporate though: “It is a 90% profit margin business. studios tell Wall street how much money they will make off of the Internet, but tell us they don’t know anything about how the Web will play out.”
The WGA is striking because members don’t want to make the same “stupid” mistakes they did over the years with video and DVD residuals at this contract negotiation period, Rakhe indicated.
Rakhe said: “In ten years all TV will be on the Internet.” Writers are determined to make sure they will be paid for their work ten years from now.
I asked Rakhe about his work: “It is an incredibly fun job. I get to sit in a room–from 10am to 10pm–with ten other people who have been vetted for their senses of humor and tell jokes, create stories.”
On the Jeopardy! set I asked Trebek if he had any words of encouragement for the writers manning the Sony sidewalks: “I just learned today that some Jeopardy! writers are on the lines, I will have to bring doughnuts for them tommorow. I hope the strike is over soon, that egos don’t get in the way. In any event, we have shows in the can to last us till 2025,” he quipped.
The Caveman’s funny men, however, are not joking around about their futures.