Screen Actors Guild Contract Negotations: "Reasonable" Asks On Digital Media
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
As the slow burn negotiations between Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers continue, the actors union has outlined why it thinks the digital media revenue share part is important. Well, money, for one. Here's how it describes it, rather simplistically: "Over 9 billion videos are watched online per month. YouTube alone has over 200 million unique visitors every month. This year the leading 100 media companies will realize an estimated $20.7 billion in Internet revenue. And advertisers will spend $2.9 billion annually on online video ads by 2010. All this adds up to tremendous opportunities for actors." How many of them are SAG member, of course, is a different story.
It then lists the ways in which these shows are being used online, including "some shows are being streamed live multiple times before the episode is scheduled to broadcast." As to what SAG is asking for, easy: "reasonable" minimums and residuals. The ways in which residuals would get calculated would be highlighted in another reports tomorrow. More details are here.
By Rafat Ali