SUGGESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE

In business, a ‘Suggestion From the Audience’ consists of data from the marketplace. The big suggestion in this scene is clear: the audience is migrating from a couple of entertainment formats to many — or to one ubiquitous web-enabled metaverse, depending on how you look at it. Either way, it ain’t just about your TV and your motion pictures any more. Money is being made elsewhere, lots of it, and both sides are angling for their slice of the new pie.

WGA: Acknowledges the suggestion and acts on it. Grade: A

AMPTP: Ditto. There’s no mistaking what the market data says and where the ad dollars are going. Grade: A

THEMES

Themes are ideas that guide and inform a business performance. Suggestions From the Audience provide the inspiration for these Themes.

WGA: It has adopted the familiar labor Theme of ‘Screwed by the Suits’ (and secondary themes of ‘Now or Never’ and ‘Fair Share’). While the ‘Screwed’ theme may appeal to some in the TV and film audience, it is not the segment of the audience migrating to phones and the web for entertainment (who have themselves embraced a theme called ‘Screw the Suits’ — and don’t the Suits know it!). The theme adopted by the WGA does not follow organically from the Suggestion. Grade: C

AMPTP: It’s always a little tougher to read a Management performance, but they seem have adopted Themes like ‘Whole New Ballgame’ and ‘Holding the Fort’. Their desire is to hedge against audience and ad dollar erosion by generating revenues in new media. There is also an undercurrent of ‘Fear of the Unknown’ running through their actions. While not exactly eliciting empathy, these themes do a slightly better job of acting on the Suggestion than the WGA is doing. Grade: B-minus

INITIATION

An Initiation is the first significant or meaningful action made in a scene.

WGA: It initiated by encouraging media coverage of its deliberations in the 72 hours leading up to the strike, augmented by a flurry of blogs and posts online by its members, and stars joining the picket lines. But these are not Blacksburg coal miners striking over poor working conditions. The unfocused quality of this initiation is epitomized by a Saturday Night Live sketch last weekend in which a studio executive “making only $20 million a year” bashed the writers “making $200,000 a year.” Does anyone in the audience relate to either of those numbers? The grade improves because the internet and the blogosphere give Writers a forum for doing what they do best, and stars by definition have strong audience appeal. Grade: B-minus

AMPTP: It initiated by lamenting in the media that we will soon be without our favorite TV shows. This, too, is a move that fails to connect with the most significant segment of the audience. The migratory media consumer will simply move on to new favorites, and there are unlimited options. Maybe some people will miss Letterman and Leno, but, again, these will not be the new media users whose loyalty both players are courting. Grade: B-minus

GAME

The Game is the engine that drives the scene. For it to be played, it must be agreed upon by all the players in the scene. One of the most significant talents a GameChanger has is the ability to choose and play productive games that make the objective possible.

WGA: The game is ‘Strike’. This game involves putting so much pressure — financially and in terms of public sentiment — on management that management capitulates. (Note that the AMPTP has agreed to the game.) The problem with the WGA playing this game is that financially, the AMPTP can play the game longer and to its advantage — by using up inventory, and lowering costs by cutting overhead and letting expensive contracts expire. And as for public sentiment, no one writing for a network sitcom and fighting for future residuals can earn much empathy from a public concerned with outsourcing, education, the environment, the war against whoever we’re fighting these days, and health care. Grade: C

AMPTP: Given the reasons cited above, the Strike game works out better for this player. If the AMPTP is out to break the union, this is a game that could do it, given the glut of reality shows and the (non-union written) content it can cultivate and bring to market for the duration of the strike. Generally, however, a successful player in the Networked World engages in games that are win-win, not a win-lose game like this one, an artifact from the Industrial Age. Grade: B-minus

COMMUNICATION

Players in a business scene need to communicate well for it to achieve its objective. (In this scene the objective for both sides to have what they deem is their fair slice of the new media pie.) Human communication happens on three levels: Cosmetic: the dialogue exchanged; what’s on the surface); Emotional (our innermost desires, what drives us) and Meta (the symbols and metaphors we use to express ourselves and connect with the audience).

WGA: The cosmetic level is as eloquent as it gets, but the emotional and meta communication leave a lot to be desired. Who gets stirred to action by a tale of woe told by the well-heeled and well-fed? The lack of emotional communication leaves the audience’s sense of justice and indignation unaroused. Grade: B-minus

AMPTP: Relatively silent cosmetically, and studiously unemotional, it owns the meta communication with brands and characters the audience knows well. When it comes down to Mickey Mouse vs. Jon Robin Baitz, guess who wins the hearts and minds of the audience? Grade: B

OVERALL

Yesterday, I was on East Melrose Avenue when a motorcycle cop stopped traffic for no more than three minutes to let a picture car for an Ikea commercial drive through a red light. Drivers of the held-up cars laid on their horns and did not stop. 20 or more cars were honking the entire time. And this was not friendly honking. This was angry, impatient, who-do-they-think-they-are? honking. This was the audience talking back to Hollywood, right in its own backyard. Both players in this scene need to do a better job of improvising, or the game they’re playing will turn into a lose-lose proposition.

WGA: GPA 2.7

AMPTP: GPA 3.05

With grades like these, ain’t nobody going to no Harvard. In an era when anybody can own their own bakery, waging a very public fight over slices of a pie does not seem like such a productive scene for either player.