Battlestar Galactica 'Webisodes' Conflict Brewing

nebaz writes "MSNBC has an article saying that there is tension between NBC and Ron Moore and team about the royalties on the 'Webisodes' of Battlestar Galactica. The episodes have been seized by NBC, balking at Ron Moore's refusal to produce any more episodes, due to compensation issues."

Re:free witing, but nbc owns it?

[BladesP9]

Right now NBC Universal is in the process of doing a lot of quirky things. I heard just today they're scaling back production of their "8-9pm dramas" to make room for more game a reality-type shows because they are cheaper to produce. NBC Universal is rumored to be about to lay off 700 people as a result of dropping profits and what not. Personally, I think it's a crock of crap and is just the studio making a cash grab and trying to screw the creative types out of their money. It's been a historical theme that business people will always try to screw creative people.... however the creative types today are a lot smarter than they used to be. It should be interesting to see how it shapes out. With all of the on-demand and downloadable styles of content, I think it's prudent to make sure these businesses remain viable - but screwing the artists isn't the way to do it.

Beyond Jericho?

[SleepyHappyDoc]

I wonder if this is related or similar to what happened to the Jericho webisodes...there was one, corresponding to the pilot, but now the CBS website has been re-worked to remove all references to it.

Re:Uh....

[Malfourmed]

Agreed - it's all about driving a wedge between what the writers (and others) get, and what they - the studios - keep [worldinprogress.org], a gap that will get substantially wider as the net takes off as a distribution channel.

from someone in the biz

[Anonymous Coward]

I write music for some of these shows and let me tell you, you have no idea how deep the well goes. Most of us get ZERO royalties per download off of shows on itunes. ASCAP/BMI refuses to track them on the internet. Thus, as the viewing audience shifts, they are trying to squeeze us out. It's amazing really.

Re:free witing, but nbc owns it?

[psiphiorg]

> not pay writers? sheet. if these people worked for nbc, would nbc not pay them for the time during their work day they wrote?

Nobody said that they weren't paid at all. The article just says that they don't get paid residuals, which are extra payments, above and beyond what they are initially paid for their work, that writers (among other professions) get paid when their material is aired again, whether as a regular rerun during the season, during a marathon, or in syndication.

There are some good debatable issues here. When the show is broascast on television as a rerun, that is obviously a second airing, which generates residuals. But when is the "second airing" for a downloadable episode?

If one million people download an episode over the course of one week, should that count as one million "airings", or seven (one per day), or just one (for the week)?

If residuals are to be based on how long an episode is available for download, will that cause networks to remove episodes after a week, because to keep it up longer would trigger more payments to the writers (et al.)?

davidh

It may be "promotional," but...

[denebian devil]

Seems to me as much creative energy went into creating those webisodes as did the full TV episodes (albeit 3 minutes at a time). It's not like the webisodes are just clips of scenes from other episodes all strung together into a 30 second commercial... they are all unique content, things you can't get from just watching TV episodes.

I wonder if the actors got paid for the time they spent shooting those "promotions." Or makeup, costume, cameramen, the list goes on.

Re:You're kidding right?

[CrackedButter]

Considering they are free, it seems nobody from outside the North American mainland can view them. I tried last week and got stopped because it located my IP. What's the point when a determined person can get round the block anyway and then dump them on a P2P network and in the process create that avenue for your future non-american customers?

Re:Watchmen

[Jeff DeMaagd]

That was sleazy. If the item is intended to be purchased by the person getting the item, it's definitely not a promotional item, or at least in my opinion, it shouldn't be. That's one of the kind of things I am not surprised to read about with regards to the comic book industry.

Preemptive strike

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the web is likely to be the future of television this is more of setting a standard for compensation for web based content. If they get cut out now they may be in the future if and when broadcast and potentially cable goes away. The viewers might not notice a big difference but if content switches to technically a web based broadcast the creative people may get cut out. It's happened a lot in the past. One of the classic examples were old movie stars. Shirley Temples mother was known as one of the toughest negoiators but she couldn't have predicted TV and Temple never got a dime off any of the films shown on TV inpsite of tens of millions being made from their broadcast. 20 years ago no one would have predicted web broadcasts. The internet was new so browsers and email were still essentially in the future. Who can say what is possible in twenty more years. There's even talk about redoing the internet itself since it was never designed for this much traffic. That could be another openning to renegoiate. The suits are the ones trying to screw everyone over. The artists are mostly trying to pay rent.

Problems across NBC Universal

[Dachannien]

It's amazing how much ineptitude seems to be rising to the top at Sci-Fi and NBC Universal.

Bonnie Hammer cancels Farscape, a show with a dedicated fan base, because she thinks that the serialized plotline is too hard for the fans to follow. She makes this decision just as the Internet is starting to become a good way for fans who miss an episode to keep up with the series (iTMS started months later, and it should have been obvious to anyone that television and movies would eventually make their way to iTunes). She replaces it with the single-season flop Tremors: The Series, and is rewarded for her poor judgment by being promoted to President of USA Network and Sci-Fi Channel.

Mark Stern shoots the company in the foot by cancelling Stargate SG-1 (another show with a dedicated fan base) despite strong backing from its production company, MGM. To add insult to injury, Stern refuses to let MGM court other TV networks for a new home for SG-1. This is combined with the decision to separate the SG-1 franchise from its follower, Battlestar Galactica. Shortly thereafter, the nature of the synergy between Stargate and BSG is revealed, as BSG's season premiere ratings were substantially lower [savestargatesg1.com] than last season's premiere. MGM plans to release new SG-1 content direct to DVD, and they may end up producing a full Season 11 for iTunes and DVD. NBC Universal won't see a dime from those projects.

Sci-Fi Channel is also diluting their brand by airing professional wrestling, despite it already being carried on USA, in an apparent effort to mimic Spike TV, which at least runs five hours of Star Trek every weekday.

Now, Marc Graboff gets on the BSG production team's bad side by screwing them out of residuals, and tries to justify it by blaming it all on the BSG production team.

And finally, NBC decides to yank dramas and comedies from the 8pm time slot because they're "too expensive" compared to reality shows. Never mind that NBC rode the top of the rating charts for years on the backs of shows like Seinfeld and Friends (and, later in the evening, ER and Law & Order). It's almost as if NBC decided that being in last place with crappy-but-cheap shows was better than being top dog, and if they put Deal or No Deal on five nights a week, last place is where they'll end up.

Today there was also a big story about how NBC Universal is laying off about 5% of their workforce. [reuters.com] I wonder if they're taking suggestions for whom to axe.

For those with limited horizons

[Telvin_3d]

I am seeing a lot of comments here with the commenter's saying things along the lines of "The webisodes are free anyway, so what is the issue with residuals? Who cares?" This is an amazingly short sided view.

Yes, the webisodes and similar media may be shown free at the moment, but that is a temporary thing at best. Say a year from now the show gets exported to another country and instead of showing the webisodes for free there, they decide to sell them through whatever the local equivalent of the iTunes store is at 50 cents a pop. I know all sorts of people that would happily pay for 2-5 minute chunks of extra content for their favourite series during the off season.

Or, (and this is very likely), the season 3 DVD releases of Battlestar Galactica include the webisodes as 'bonus content' the same way that movie DVDs include the trailers. And the studios will say 'hell, no one gets paid extra for including the trailers with the DVD, they're promotional material, so why should the actors/writers get paid extra for it?' At the same time, you can get that it will be advertised as the DVD set including the 'bonus episode worth of content' that it really is. The writers get paid for the episodes on that DVD, so why don't they deserve to get paid for the webisodes?

any one with minimal imagination can come up with other ways that content like this can be used or changed in ways that we are not seeing yet but that cross lines. If it doesn't happen with the Battlestar Galactica content,it will happen tot he next popular series that is inventive enough to reach out to the fans in new ways with new content. In a lot of ways, we are lucky that it is happening with an example that is clear cut in many ways in favour of the creative team and with people who are willing to fight. Otherwise, these types of rights and incentives might disappeared before anyone recognised they existed, and that would be the end of this type of content.

Re:You're kidding right?

[M1FCJ]

You can't get more overseas than UK where the BSG gets shown before US.

I don't even have a TV but I know that quite a lot of people travel over the Atlantic in their private jets to get the UK aired shows regularly (as opposed to downloading them from a torrent).

Re:Problems across NBC Universal and ineptitude

[Nitewing98]

The sort of clumsy handling of sci-fi programs you're talking about is, unfortunately, endemic in the TV industry. Good shows get cancelled (the original Star Trek and The Vistor come to mind right away). Other shows get so little in the way of resources that they become ridiculous (Lost in Space and (I'm sorry) the original Galactica).

Face it. TV doesn't "get" science fiction. These corporations are run by corporate suits with MBA's and degrees in marketing and have no soul and no imagination. These shows are nothing but product to them. Nevermind that Star Trek did more for encouraging research in a bunch of fields of science. It's no accident that the generation raised on Trek created PC's, PDA's, cell phones, and other technology. I'm reading now about the (real) experiments in bending microwaves (a cloaking device), matter teleportation, and energy weapons.

Clearly, to those of us in the tech industry and the sciences, these shows are NOT silly, mindless, childish or merely a "product." They are the source of many inspirations. We care about these shows.

TV doesn't. And the probably never will.

Perhaps a consortium of web geeks should approach Moore et al and offer them the services of a dedicated streaming server and a loyal fanbase. Maybe we can help good content make the jump FROM TV to the 'net.

What are the Google guys doing? They've got the money...and advertisers...this could actually work!

Re:I like BSG as much as the next guy

[Swtzrs]

You're very much correct about these being very easily classified as promotional materials. Strictly speaking - they are. The problem is that is exactly what will prevent this sort of new style of content from being created by anyone who isn't trying to sell you something. BSG tries something different with their show and they get screwed by it. They get a clear message from the network bosses - "Go ahead and come up with these new ways to produce content - just don't expect to get paid for it" (okay, they got paid, just not as much as they were expecting) This war over one's fair share of the pile of cash on the table is pretty much inevitable, and we should be surprised that its holding back development of new forms of content. If NBC wanted to REALLY tweak the BSG folks, they should string all the 'webisodes' together, air them on TV along with commercials. Call it a 'commer-sode' and refuse to pay residuals.

Re:You know what I want from BSG?

[cyclocommuter]

Personally, I am enjoying the humans play the role of rebels/insurgents versus the militarily superior cylons... strapping bombs on their chest on suicide missions, but at the same time those captured have sacks put on their heads just like prisoners in Iraq / Guantanamo. Watching the conflicts within number 6 and number 8 (Sharon) who have been "exposed" to humans is also heady stuff. With plot twists like these, who cares about blowing up stuff in space?

Re:You know what I want from BSG?

[Fallingcow]

Don't forget that the Cylon occupational government is called the CPA. The US occupational government in Iraq was called the CPA, as well (Coalition Provisional Authority).

The parallels are not suble, but they are quite appropriate.

Re:Uh....

[dominator]

NBC's Monday Night headliner, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" [wikipedia.org], is a show about how studios desperately need to attract and retain good writing and producing talent and stop showing so much reality TV garbage. Clearly, the NBC execs aren't watching their own network, making this whole debacle fraught with irony.

Re:from someone in the biz

[hardburn]

But now we are being told that the money doesn't go back to the creative talent, ie presumably it goes into the oversized pockets of company execs/shareholders.

Quite so. See also Hollywood Accounting [wikipedia.org], which caused movies like Forest Gump to officially have no net profit (and thus screwing over the writer of the orginal book, as his contract specified that he gets a percentage of the profit).

The real pirates are in movie and music stuido board rooms.

Re:It may be "promotional," but...

[denebian devil]

Did you actually watch the webisodes? The new content is about 30 seconds per webisode, the rest is titles and a commercial made from clips of the upcoming series. They ran the same 2 clip commercials over and over, across the 10 webisodes. So this whole fuss is over 5min of original made-for-the-web content.

First, 30 seconds per webisode is an exaggeration. It was probably more like 1.5-2 minutes per. And while that is still short, the actual "meat" of the webisodes are all original content, and content which is integral to understanding what's going on relationships-wise when Season 3 starts. I actually watched the start of Season 3 before watching the webisodes, and it made so much more sense after seeing that little bit of content.

There are other obvious problems with this new season's shows. Apparently they got tired of spending so much money on computer graphics, so almost all of the new shows are set in a muddy field, with some tents and some junk. It's turned into a freaking soap opera about mommies and babies. Fuck that shit, I want to see some nuclear explosions in space!

Then BSG was clearly not meant for you. Stop watching.