MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.
Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1509247
In the case of the video story industry, it has been painfully obvious that without the women, men writing, shooting, handling lighting/backdrops/sound, fixing costumes, doing make-up, performing, animating, video/sound editing, doing CGI/VFX and the myriad of “little” things bosses don’t have much to folks. Not to defend entertainment bosses’ paychecks against yours, but the truth is CEO paychecks dwarf those of the workforce around the globe. Workers everywhere are demanding higher pay and better conditions. Over the last 10 years, US CEO paychecks have risen an average of $5M to an average CEO compensation of $16.7M this past year. While stock option compensation has shrunk, industry head’s pay is still vastly ahead of that of the creative industries largely freelance workforce. To quell the concerns of Wall Street and shareholders, studio/streamer bosses like WBD’s David Zaslav said on an earnings call that the company had $4.5 - $5B free cash flow. Disney reported they had about $1.5B, while Netflix had a little over $1.3B in free cash flow. Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, and Peacock generated $3.4B. While much of that money was the result of not investing in new movies/shows for theaters and their services but Wall Street and shareholders were “optimistic.” To take advantage of the lull, WBD continued reducing staffing in almost every area including – Discovery, TCM, MAX, CNN – marketing and ad sales. The latter two the company felt AI could handle the tasks more efficiently, more effectively and yes…more cheaply. As part of a reorganization, Disney eliminated about 7,000 jobs while Netflix reduced their head count by a modest 300 and like the rest of the studios/streamers invested in AI tools. When it came to the entertainment industry strikes bosses didn’t do what the heads of the auto industry be involved at the outset and passed the discussions off to their AMPTP hired guns figuring they’d just…wait. Worked with directors because DGA demands were pretty simple…money (ok other little things but…). For writers here and abroad, the DGA agreement was the starting point…not the goal. After five months of getting nearly nowhere, studio/streamer heads decided open, personal “discussions” were in order because they knew which way their organizations were going and could negotiate best on