Golden Globes Cancelled
Well now, this is something. Due to the protest by the Writers Guild of America and the support by actors who vowed to boycott it, the Golden Globes has been cancelled. Thus there will be no ceremony and the winners will be announced via a press conference and a scaled back red carpet event, so no big traditional televised dinner and prize presentation.
*cough* How did this all happen ?
Well every three years, the Writers Guilds negotiate a new basic contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) by which its members are employed. This contract is called the Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA), which is the entertainment industry’s equivalent to a sports league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
In the 2007 negotiations over the MBA an impasse was reached, and the WGA membership voted to give its board authorization to call a strike, which it did on Friday, November 2, with the strike beginning the subsequent Monday, November 5, 2007.
Among the many proposals from both sides regarding the new contract, there are several key issues of contention including DVD residuals; union jurisdiction over animation and reality program writers; and, perhaps most importantly, compensation for “new media“– content written for (or distributed through) emerging digital technology such as the Internet.[6]
WGA members argue that a writer’s residuals, or profits made from subsequent airings or purchases of a program, are a necessary part of a writer’s income that is typically relied upon during periods of unemployment common in the writing industry. The WGA has requested a doubling of the residual rate for DVD sales, which, according to the WGA, would result in a residual of approximately eight cents (up from four cents) per DVD sold.
The AMPTP maintains that DVD sales are necessary to offset rising production and marketing costs. They have further insisted the current DVD formula be applied to residuals in other digital media—an area also being contested by the Writers Guild.
The WGA removed the DVD proposal from the table the night before the strike began. However, WGAW President Patric M. Verrone later wrote that the membership exhibited “significant disappointment and even anger” when they learned of this, and as the removal was contingent on further concessions by the AMPTP (which did not happen), “all bets are off” on the withdrawal of the DVD proposal.
The WGA has proposed that writers receive 2.5% of distributor’s gross for new-media sales and distribution.
The companies have for now refused to address this proposal, and have instead proposed Internet sales follow the same formula as DVD sales. With regard to streaming, the companies have proposed that so-called “promotional” streaming—including the streaming of a program in its entirety and even for profit via advertising or other means—does not entitle residuals to the writer or writers whatsoever.
Both of these proposals have been rejected by the WGA and are cited as evidence the studios “(want) to shut down rather than reaching a fair deal.”
This is just hilarious. But due to this… many good tv series has been put on hold. So DAMN FOR YOU.
News Sources from :
TMZ
Sydney Morning Herald
Wikipedia
Sky News
ABC News Australia
Serge Norguard is the writer for Dustyhawk :: Broken Mirror. This site has been established in 2002, where he writes everything and anything under the sun. To know about Serge go to his 
Heya dustyhawk.. i don’t think it’s terribly hilarious but rather a pity. In the industry they are in, money is not always stable and th writers, while they play a major role in a movie or tvseries, I don’t think they nearly get as much as the actors playing the characters.
That said though, I think the whole strike was a quite a downturn for people who look towards acting as their bread and butter. I mean without the writers you don’t get shows, which in turn you don’t get actors that we have come to “recognise” on screen doing their job.
The studios should just make a reasonable contract that can benefit everyone. Rather than causing such strife just for the sake of monopolising a portion of the new media industry.
it is true what you have said. and it is a shame for this to happen.
when i said “terribly hilarious” im not laughing rather i was sad on how they could not see the bigger picture.
Hehe sorry my bad
but i’m glad that there are other bloggers out there who are also interested in looking at the issue rather than just complaining that their fav tv shows are gone.. i doubt very much the actors are happy themselves but even they are fighting for the writers rights too.
That’s alright. No harm done.
[...] Heath Ledger who did a fantastic job of the Joker in the Dark Knight was found naked and dead from an overdose. Yeah, another famous actor of possible lifetime achievement award dead during his prime and when things might be looking good for him. And the Golden Globes was canceled too. [...]