NBC Launches Second Digital TV Service in 3 Weeks, Still Refuses to Pay Writers


by Paul William Tenny

Over the course of less than a month, three interesting things happened that tell you a lot about the honesty and the intentions of the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) who flat out refuse to pay writers anything for TV shows streamed over the Internet or downloaded to your computer (after you've bought it from Apple or Amazon presumably.)

  1. NBC and Fox launched a streaming-video website called Hulu.com that streams all their hit TV shows (with commercials that they make money from) absolutely free to users.

  2. NBC and Fox as part of AMPTP refused to pay writers any money for digital media at all at the contract negotiating table, and the writers went on strike to protest.

  3. NBC launched another service off their nbc.com domain which allows people to download and store their shows (with commercials that they make money from), again for free, which will remain playable for a period of 7 days.
NBC Universal, 20th Century Fox, and all the rest of the mega-corporations represented by the AMPTP still insist that the digital media market is too new and scary to committ to paying writers when each network is making over $100 million a year from the "non-existent market". Is it any wonder that Hollywood writers are walking the picket lines?
in Labor, Streaming Video

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