“In his keynote speech on Wednesday morning at the Media and Money conference hosted by Dow Jones and Nielsen, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner talked about writers as though they were a minority group that he didn’t particularly understand well. ‘I like writers. Some of my best friends are writers,’ he said as though attempting to save face. But nevertheless, his foremost epithet for the ongoing Writer’s Guild of America strike was ‘stupid,'” Caroline McCarthy reports for CNET.
“Eisner said in the keynote, which was structured as a conversation with Neil P. Cavuto, senior vice president and managing editor of Fox Business News. ‘This is a stupid strike,'” McCarthy reports. “Eisner, now the head of a private investment firm called The Tornante Company, has launched an online video studio called Vuguru, and said that it’s still more or less a fruitless labor. Vuguru’s debut series, a serial mystery called Prom Queen, ‘didn’t make money,’ he said.”
“The problem, Eisner said, is that the Writer’s Guild is lobbying for a bigger cut of the profits from digital distribution–and according to the former Disney chief, those profits simply aren’t there,” McCarthy reports. “He said it would take about three years for Web video and other forms of digital distribution to gain enough of a foothold to be profitable–and that’s when the Writer’s Guild would have a case to make. ‘What I’m saying is for a current writer, for six thousand people to give up today’s money for a nonexistent piece today is stupid,’ Eisner asserted. ‘They can do it in three years. They shouldn’t be doing it now.'”
“Eisner, a well-known critic of Apple (whose CEO, Steve Jobs, is a powerful member of Disney’s board of directors), suggested that the profits may be getting sucked up elsewhere. The studios ‘make deals with Steve Jobs, who takes them to the cleaners. They make all these kinds of things, and who’s making money? Apple! They should get a piece of Apple. If I was a union, I’d be striking up wherever he is,'” McCarthy reports.
Full article here.
So, the writers are stupid for striking, the studios are stupid for making deals with Apple and Eisner himself is obviously stupid for going from Disney CEO to ignominious obscurity. (Vuguru? What the hell is that? Just go play golf and shaddup, Mikey.)
It’s impossible to negotiate with Steve Jobs. Jobs is a Shiite Muslim. – Michael Eisner, Disney Board Meeting, March 2003
Funny how Disney CEO Bob Iger seems to do just fine negotiating all kinds of deals with Steve Jobs. Jobs is a Pescetarian, by the way.
Let’s face facts. For good or bad, Steve Jobs usually gets what he wants, including Eisner’s head on a platter (which would be an example of “good” for Disney employees, customers, and shareholders – including Disney’s largest shareholder; “bad” only for Eisner, hence his grudge-inspired stupidity).
Anyway, everyone’s stupid and Steve Jobs is, as usual, the smartest guy in the room.
That part sounds about right to us, even coming from loose cannon Michael Eisner. Otherwise, the writers are striking correctly against the studios who employ them and control the profits. Apple is simply a retailer.
Eisner’s excuse (from what I read here) doesn’t make much sense. If the guild only wants a percentage of the digital profits, and Eisner contends they are making 0 profits, then the guild still gets 0.
I think part of the issue is the guild saying “prove to me you are making 0 profits and open your books and show me how much profit you’re making” and the studios being found to be engaging in creative book-keeping.
This putz isn’t one of us! It’s a lie!
Of course. Steve Jobs and iTunes Store are the only thing between the content providers and untold riches. Why, if only they had their own well trafficked download store, they’d sure show him. Hovever, that damn Jobs and his mind-controlling iTunes Store. Without them, consumers would be more than willing to cough up $50 for a 20 minute timeframe to view a stream of a 2.5 hour movie (a stream that would not even fill a cell phone monitor, by the way)!!!!!
Jobs is not doing anything but providing the content to consumers at about the price they are willing to pay. The percentage cut of what the content providers get I cannot comment on for video, but Apple’s profit margin on audio is close to the break even point.
Are the writers asking for a bigger cut of the total pie? Or from the percent that the studios get back?
This strike is like the crew of a sinking ship revolting over their pay.
Network TV is not going to survive this. Unless of course they want become the networks of sports, local news, and re-runs (the only three things they’re good at anyway).
Now is the time for “new media” like Apple to swoop in and finally seal the old school’s fate.
Vuguru is just plain bad and another poor me too attempt at online distribution.
Prom Queen definitely got my emotions going, I wanted to kill myself after the first 60 seconds
@ craig isbell
your right the studios are spending tons of money without much profit, but guess where the money’s coming from? The studios are extorting the writers and creatives, then taking their money and investing the ill gotten gains in to – ‘hulu’, ‘vigurru’ and other aptly named failures because in essence its free money to the studios. Once money does start rolling in, if ever, what would posess anyone to think it’d be shared? The studios and unions are only about money, the working mans only defense is to strike, because once money stops moving, these people listen to them. I stopped buying US music about 10 years ago when I realized, hmmm, 18 songs, 15 suck, $22 = doesn’t add up. The UK for now relies on talent, and not marketing to produce results. The US music studios were pumping out crap at high prices for waaaaayyy too long, now, payday is over.
Eisner: The Jimmy Carter of ex-CEOs….
Bob, you’re an idiot. We all have the right to negotiate for a better life. Collective bargaining is a good thing. If you want to blame someone for bad programing, blame the networks for canceling great shows with *great* writing like Firefly.
BTW, it’s illegal in this country to permanently replace a bargained employee that goes on strike.
TowerTone: The Ann Coulter of MDN…
JC
That made me laugh!
What seems to be ignored in all this is that the writers are already making more from DVDs today.
It’s just math.
1995 – 3% of 1 thousand units = X amount of revenue.
2007 – 3% of 10 thousand units = 10 times X amount of revenue.
Why exactly do they need to double their residual percentage… let alone attempting to set up residual figures for a business model (video downloads) that hasn’t shown any long term financial viability, yet…if it even exists.
Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.
That guy is so cheap !
It’s impossible to negotiate with Steve Jobs. Jobs is a Shiite Muslim. – Michael Eisner
WOW, I’ll never see Disney in the same innocent light again.
Goes to show what religious brainwashing and hate can do even to the highest of executives.
Eisner sued a local Catholic church I know for having paintings of Mickey Mouse and Goofy on it’s playroom walls.
What a asswipe of a human being.
@nobodi
That’s POINT 3%, not 3%, based on Synthmeister’s account of the rumble.
“Why exactly do they need to double their residual percentage”
– Because they were screwed over in the last deal.
“let alone attempting to set up residual figures for a business model (video downloads) that hasn’t shown any long term financial viability, yet…if it even exists.”
– It’s not just “video downloads”.
– This time they are getting in on the ground floor, to realize correct and better returns of their material input.
– opining thoughts that the internet is not the future for content delivery, is imho, a bit shortsighted.
Eisner did such a good job with California Adventure, that Disney is spending more than it cost to build the park in a redesign. It just goes to show you that execs like Eisner don’t care about a good product, but are concerned with short run profit margins and than right-offs for a loss on P&L;’s.
LOL!
“What a asswipe of a human being.”
Priceless!
I always find it funny when I hear the big studios complaining about something being “NOT PROFITABLE”.
In the land of accounting, ‘Profit’ is what you have left over if you were unskilled enough to be able to hide it all away in all of the other accounting columns.
Always demand a piece of the Gross, never the Net or anything less.
-hh