DGA honcho Michael Apted released the following statement on the guild’s overwhelming approval vote for their new contract. It contains some interesting views of the “road ahead,” in terms of internet, streaming, and attendant revenue sources:
LOS ANGELES – It is my great pleasure to announce that the DGA membership has overwhelmingly voted to ratify the new collective bargaining agreements between the DGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).
The vote reflects the strong support and enthusiasm our members have for our new contract. We won important gains such as higher wages, higher residual bases, significant improvements in basic cable, a more secure health plan, and solutions to problems affecting our ADs and UPMs.
We also set a series of important precedents crucial to our survival in this digital age — among them, jurisdiction in new media, a doubling of the home video rate as it applies to electronic sell-through, and the establishment of a gross based payment in ad-supported streaming while maintaining our historic fixed residuals where there is continued uncertainty about actual grosses.
We entered this round of bargaining steadfast in our belief, borne of 70 years of negotiating experience, that what would make it possible for us to achieve our goals was our 18 months of research and preparation, our understanding of the issues our industry faces, and our willingness to sit across the table and negotiate until a conclusion was reached. We also recognized that this was only the beginning of a series of difficult negotiations and that we are still years away from the time when new media will be our industry’s dominant revenue source.
