Screen Actors Guild Responds to AMPTP Ad Scheduled for December 15

LOS ANGELES, December 14, 2008 — Screen Actors Guild today released the following statement in response to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producer's (AMPTPs) ad scheduled for tomorrow.

“There they go again.  The  AMPTP’s ad is great fiction, with convoluted bullet points and confused messages -- and, it’s completely wrong.

Here’s the truth:

• Under the AMPTP’s current  offer, streaming of new television product on hulu.com and other new media platforms  pays day performers about  $46 for the first year’s use.  Not  per run of the episode, but for the whole year, and that’s  only after a 17-day FREE rerun window.
  
  Peter  Chernin, Chairman and CEO of News Corp., told industry analysts that his  company’s ad-supported online programming site, the already $12 million  profitable HULU.com, was a  “replacement for reruns”.

• Under the AMPTP’s current offer,  there is no union jurisdiction for original made for new media projects made  for budgets under $15,000 per minute. That’s the vast majority of all new  media. We have signed more than 800 productions to our SAG new media agreement.  If we can do it, why can’t the AMPTP?  We are certainly willing to show  them how it’s done.
• Their  proposal for original programming running on abc.com, nbc.com, cbs.com, and  other network new media platforms is – zero. Yes, seriously,  zero.
• Management is gutting the  contract through the demand that we remove force majeure which has been a  protection for actors since the first SAG agreement in 1937.
• Management has also demanded broad and sweeping changes to the more than half-century old clip consent provision which guarantees actors the right to consent to the use of  their image and to be compensated for that use.
• Minimum increases in traditional media doesn’t do  actors any good if there aren’t any minimums in new media.

How  can that be anything but 'the end of residuals?'

How can that be  anything but a situation in which it is 'impossible for actors to make a  living?'

How can that be anything but 'a massive roll  back?'

How can that be anything but 'life or death for SAG  members?'

Make no mistake about it, this is exactly what management is  offering in original programming streamed on new media:

Minimum  Rate – Zero
Residual Structure – Zero
Overtime Protections –  Zero
Forced Call Consideration – Zero
Young Performer (Minors)   Protections – Zero

Management is offering a lousy  deal with “Zero” in new media and is threatening the promotion of non-union  work in a residual-free environment without minimum  compensation.

That could be the beginning of the end for actors' careers and livelihoods.”

About SAG
Screen Actors Guild is the nation’s largest labor union representing working actors. Established in 1933, SAG has a rich history in the American labor movement, from standing up to studios to break long-term engagement contracts in the 1940s to fighting for artists’ rights amid the digital revolution sweeping the entertainment industry in the 21st century. With 20 branches nationwide, SAG represents over 120,000 actors who work in film and digital television, industrials, commercials, video games, music videos and all other new media formats. The Guild exists to enhance actors’ working conditions, compensation and benefits and to be a powerful, unified voice on behalf of artists’ rights. SAG is a proud affiliate of the AFL-CIO. Headquartered in Los Angeles, you can visit SAG online at www.sag.org.