But it can be argued that figuring out some kind of equitable residual formula for the relatively new and massively expanding area of made-for-streaming-services shows may have one of the more significant bearings on the futures of grips, editors, cinematographers and thousands of other rank-and-file production workers IATSE represents.
3 comments:
Well this is troubling. The article did not make it entirely clear to me how either the current system works for streaming media or how the proposed measure would work, but it sounds like IA workers on TV that is made for streaming are getting the short end of the stick. Considering how large a share of the market streaming services have become, I can’t imagine that a truly bad contract will stay in place very long before people start fighting to change it, but if it is as bad as this article makes it out to be, it could do some damage before that happens. It does seem strange to me that the streaming companies claim that there is not a way to measure or quantify how many times content has been viewed when in reality, they have more direct access to that information than ever before. It seems to me residuals should either be based on number of viewers or, if there is really that much opposition to that, simply how long a show stays on a platform like Netflix.
Today, most people don't watch tv- instead they resort to another form of streaming. Throughout the years Netflix, Hulu, etc. have grown in popularity among all age ranges, but especially the younger generations. In the article, they mentioned that Netflix lives off of its subscribers, which mostly contains of teenagers. I personally think that without the younger generations, majority of the subscribers, Netflix wouldn’t be as possible and television would still be alive. Although many still tune in to watch television strict streaming, Netflix and other streaming websites have definitely conquered the media. With the giant fans and young generations of Netflix lovers, they are the reason that Netflix is dominating and will most likely continue. Although, without a doubt, Netflix is very flawed and has gotten numerous negative reviews on the fact that they cancel their audiences favorite shows. But, with this, it is still the most subscribed to platform as well as one that is required a monthly subscription.
I’m surprised that streaming services don’t have the data on how many people watch each of there shows. I would have thought that to see how well the different shows were doing they would have kept the data. I’m interested to see what kind of metric will be created. The article implies that the new metric to calculate royalties will both be based on subscribers and I’m interested to see what it becomes. Hopefully the contract will not be as hard to find out about as many of the IATSE contracts are. I’m curious to why productions like Mrs. Maisel and GLOW aren't covered. These are 2 of the most talked about Netflix shows and Mrs. Maisel just won the Golden Globe for Best Television series for a Musical or a Comedy. Hopefully IATSE will get a contract that both they and AMPTP will be happy with before the strike.
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