What to expect when you’re expecting a writers’ strike

On Tuesday, a federal mediator joins the talks between the Writers’ Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers. Time's ticking, and it's not looking rosy. “Writers could walk out as early as Thursday if their union can't hammer out a new three-year employment contract with the studios to replace one that expires at midnight on Wednesday,”according to the Los Angeles Times.

So why is everyone at loggerheads? “This showdown between writers and producers is the result of a long-brewing fight over payment for online distribution of TV shows, movies, Webisodes and other new-media content,” explains Maureen Ryan in the Chicago Tribune. “In Hollywood, the WGA-AMPTP battle is widely regarded as a defining moment in the entertainment industry's digital coming-of-age...The guild wants jurisdiction over such works and it wants agreed-upon payment rates for new-media content; it wants an increase in the DVD compensation rate; and it wants a percentage of revenue derived from content sold over the Internet or delivered with advertising.”

And what would TV look like during a strike? Daily, late-night shows will be hit first. In primetime, “Long-running shows like NBC's ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’ are likely to stay in original episodes longer because they are further ahead in production than new programs like ABC's ‘Pushing Daisies,’” writes Brooke Barnes in The New York Times.

Animated series like ''The Simpsons'' and ''Family Guy,'' completed up to a year in advance, are strike-proof for this season at least. Much more problematic are complicated serial dramas like ''Lost,'' which networks typically broadcast without repeats...Networks have been stockpiling reality material in the event of a strike. The CW network alone has five completed reality series ready to go: the returning shows ''America's Next Top Model,'' ''Beauty and the Geek'' and ''Pussycat Dolls Present,'' and the new entries ''Farmer Wants a Wife'' and ''Crowned,'' about beauty pageants.

ABC has two reality shows from Oprah lined up: “Oprah Winfrey's The Big Give” and “Your Money or Your Life.” CBS has ordered up episodes of game show “Million Dollar Password” with Regis Philbin. “Dateline” might even make a comeback on NBC. The Peacock has also floated the idea of running the British version of “The Office.” The networks could possibly dip into their cable offerings for rebroadcast on primetime. FX's “Damages” could air on Fox. Past episodes of USA's “Monk” or the new season of Bravo's “Project Runway” could air on NBC while ABC could replay Lifetime's “Army Wives” or even ABC Family's “Kyle XY” or “Greek.”

Taxi design, redux

A previous post in this blog discussed the new logo gracing the sides of taxis all over New York City. Well, The New York Times has been moderating a very smart discussion about the merits and weaknesses of the logo in its City Room blog. And in the spirit of "if you don't like it, why don't you do it?" they've asked for alternative ideas from design professionals and readers.

Michael Bierut of Pentagram says, "that attempt to combine the NYC logo which is being used elsewhere with T in a circle (why?) and that (again) bluntly rounded off and oddly-spaced A-X-I just seems a little ham handed. Maybe it looked good on paper, but I don’t find it convincing on the side of a cab."

A graphics editor at The Times, Jonathan Corum, goes for the practical and suggests highlighting “the most important piece of information: the medallion number. Encouraging riders to remember (or at least notice) the number of their cab is a simple and cheap public safety measure, and would likely speed the return of lost property.”

For Oscar Bjarnson of Systm, X marks the spot. He borrows iconography from a treasure map for some of the typography. "I’d go with something simple. Maybe a typographic solution with some hint of the new NYC logo embedded."

Readers are weighing in, too. Scott Schwebel asks: What would the t-shirt look like? Well, it gets the Lady Liberty treatment. "New York City represents to the world all that is America and the dream of a better life...Why not try and have that message reinforced everyday on the street with one of our highest profile city experiences/icons?” says Schwebel. The huddled masses yearning to, er, move crosstown.

And Michael Condouris turns the checker pattern into a piece of type. “Make it easy to read, incorporate the checker pattern into the X for a little designiness, and you’ve got something fun, obvious and clear.”

And the partially anonymous reader Amanda P. succinctly incorporates into the logo the action of hailing a cab. Hmm. Perhaps NYC's Taxi & Limousine Commission should have held a contest for the new logo. Smart Design, which pro bono spearheaded the effort behind the current design, could have set up the parameters and shared some of their insight with potential contestants. And a contest might have even eliminated some of the suggested "tweaks" that probably came from the the Commission.

What happened to the jingle?

When’s the last time you heard a jingle on a TV commercial? Recently it seems that jingles are relegated to low-budget spots for local mattress stores. Instead, the big advertisers are going for two kinds of music, depending on their budget. Option one: Real, existing rock/pop songs that use some borrowed interest to lend some cool to the products they're selling. Option two: very catchy tracks by emerging artists. On the airwaves right now is one of the the later, an Old Navy commercial with a track by unsigned artist Ingrid Michaelson. "If you are chilly, here, take my sweater..."

Michaelson's MySpace page was discovered by Secret Road Music, a "management company that specializes in finding little-known acts and placing their works in soundtracks for TV shows, commercials, movies and videogames," according to this story in The Wall Street Journal. As a result, Michaelson had three songs featured on Grey's Anatomy last season. But with success comes some angry fans. On her blog Michaelson writes, "it makes me a bit upset because it seems that some people love knowing about an indie artist, but as soon as they garner some attention, these people get mad! But you have to understand that this is how we make a living!"

Target's "Hello Good Buy" campaign relied on an existing hit and reworked the Beatles'classic "Hello Good-bye." But the retailer also uses new music to soundtrack its spots. Running now is a commercial with music from a group called the Icicles. Maybe you've had the la-ti-da refrain running through your head.

But wait, it doesn't seem the jingle is completely gone. Leave it to reality show producer Mark Burnett to resurrect it. CBS has ordered eight episodes – probably stockpiling for a WGA strike – of a new series tentatively titled "Jingle." According to Variety,

teams of players will be given weekly jingle-writing assignments -- coming up with, say, the next Oscar Mayer wiener song or a new pitch for Coke -- and will then have to perform them in front of a studio audience. Viewer votes will determine a weekly winner (whose ditty will end up in a real ad) and loser (who will go home)...The ultimate winner will likely get a large cash prize and a job at a major ad agency.

A job at an ad agency? In-sourcing music? Maybe the jingle's not dead yet.

Need an album? Take an album.

Can an honor system work when it comes to business? Or art? Admission to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is a suggested – not manadatory – $20. A few restaurants and cafés have experimented with a pay-what-you-wish plan. Freakonomist Stephen Dubner has examined the trend among musicians. For example, indie singer/songwriter Jane Siberry has been letting fans decide what's a fair price for her songs. (On average, people are paying her $1.18 per track, with 99 cents as the suggested price.) And on SongSlide, musicians’ songs are available for download on sliding scale, starting at 59 cents.

And now a really, really big band is doing the same thing. Downloads of Radiohead’s new album, "In Rainbows," go on sale on October 10 for whatever you want to pay.

The Wall Street Journal does the math in this piece. “Consider the economics of the average CD. It retails for about $16 and costs about $6.40 to manufacture, distribute and sell in a store, research outfit Almighty Institute of Music Retail says...The band pulled the ripcord on EMI, so it doesn't have to share profits or help pay the label's overhead. As a well-known band it's also able to take the knives out on marketing and promotion costs, cutting these by as much as two-thirds. Subtract these expenses and Radiohead may be able to distribute an album for as little as $3.40 a copy.”

CNET calls the deal a "watershed." And the folks at Boing Boing say, “it's such a slap in the record industry's face. An unsigned superband, treating loyal fans and customers like loyal fans and customers instead of thieves -- what a revolutionary concept.”

And are those loyal fans interested? Well, overwhelming demand caused the album's site to crash shortly after details were announced. Word is that Radiohead isn’t making any advance copies available for review, but Rolling Stone has posted some concert versions of the new tracks. Or listen to a classic here.


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UPDATE: How much are fans paying so far? According to NME, about £5 or $10. And a poll by Idolator.com says about 40% plan to pay between $2 and $10 while 18% plan to pay more than $10.