I’ll be updating this periodically today, but I wanted to get my essential message out as quickly as possible:

If you’re in the Writers Guild - vote tomorrow. Honestly. Don’t assume it will work out right. Vote.

And if you’re both in the Writers Guild and you live in Maryland or Virginia, well, you’re just going to have to vote twice. That’s right, all three of you have a long day ahead of you.

For those of you who aren’t in the Guild, let me explain. The deal that we’ve struck seems like a good one to me. I’d call it a victory for the Guild, for the labor movement, and - just by the fact that it’s over - a victory for the television viewer, who may now be spared more shows based solely on ritual humiliation billed as “reality.”

But there are elements within our Guild who are furious about the new deal. So furious and fearless, in fact, that they’re posting all over the internet, urging people to continue the strike and reject the deal. So courageous and strong that when the microphone was opened up on Sunday night to ensure that every single Guild member who had a question could ask it, they stood up and…

…no, they didn’t. The mood of the meeting was almost exclusively positive, with none of these rabble-rousers attempting to raise any rabble in the physical world. But they sure have been making a brave and righteous noise on the internet. And their continued online agitation might just influence tomorrow’s strike-lifting vote. I don’t want to take that chance. Vote.

It’s not that I don’t understand their points. The deal, like any strike resolution, is far from perfect. But the things that the Guild won were the things we had to win, the things that ensure the future, while the studios mostly held on to things that gave them the short-term advantages. In short, it was very different from your traditional strike resolutions, and almost a complete inversion of the tone of the now-reviled 1988 settlement.

Full disclosure: I stood to gain almost nothing from the strike in my current employment. And that’s what I got. We late-night writers (with the exception of “Saturday Night Live”) exist in a more or less residual- and resale-free zone. Those Super Tuesday jokes don’t exactly stay fresh for long. And yes, I am anxious to get back to work.

On the other hand - I’ve got a lot of fish a-fryin’, and several projects in the works that will be very much affected by the deal. Also, I’m not a completely selfish individual. Close, but not completely.

So now that I’ve established my objectivity by telling you how aware I am of my bias (oh, the things you can learn from pundits and politicians!), let me tell you why this is a good deal…

What we gave up: We dropped animation and reality jurisdiction. Just about everyone saw that coming like a falling piano over a black “X.” We didn’t get anything better than the existing, awful DVD rate, which hurts because I hear those little discs are all the rage these days.

What we got: A small bump in residual rates. And a huge chunk of the future. Henceforth, any sufficiently high-budget “new media” is going to be under the Guild’s jurisdiction. When people download or stream movies to their computers (now) or TV sets (very, very soon), we will get paid. Not to go into too much detail, but we’re getting a reasonable percentage of the distributors’ gross. That amount, while currently capped, is an excellent starting point for any particular writer’s negotiations. The principle is what matters here, not the principal. Especially when you consider that the original, pre-strike offer was a combination of “nothing” and “we have no idea if these internets are gonna earn us anything.”

In not too long a time, your options for getting TV and movies to your screen will resemble your “on demand” cable menu. Except that the library will be more or less infinite - just about everything that’s ever played on a screen will be available to you at all times. No, that’s not Crazy Futurist Talk, it’s where this industry is headed. And until the strike, writers (and directors and actors) were poised to get pretty much zilch for it all - the horrible DVD rate would’ve seemed like a horn o’ plenty by comparison.

What we should shut up about:  Some of my guild brothers and sisters are outraged by the fact that the studios won a 17-day window in which they can stream first-run TV shows on the internet for free after its first run.

Not only have I not “found my anger” on this concept, I’m actually in favor of it.  Even ignoring the producers’ claim that they bundle internet streaming ads in with their first-broadcast - that may be true, but it’s not my problem.  But this idea has clear promotional value, especially since so many TV shows are basically serials nowadays - miss just one, and maybe, maybe you’ll catch it on DVD.  Or maybe not.  But I’m one of the thousands of people who watched episodes of “Heroes” on TV only because I caught the promotional free pilot on iTunes.  And after I missed a couple of episodes, I basically stopped watching, because it wasn’t important enough to me for me to pay for it.  There I am - poster-boy for how free streaming might have led to more viewers.  Now I’ll probably never know, nor really care, if saving a cheerleader really was a prerequisite for saving the world (though I’ve always assumed the opposite).
And 17 days doesn’t exactly cut into the broadcast rerun down the road (where a lot of writers make their cash).  I actually heard some writers make this claim though - that networks won’t re-run programs because of that window.  That sounds like hogwash to me.  The real risk is that our paid (after the 17 days) internet reruns will mean traditional reruns might go bye-bye.  I’m not sure if that’s true (original programming is more expensive, no matter how you slice it).  But the “window” isn’t part of that argument anyway.

Sorry to bore y’all.   But this is an important moment, and I’m worried about even the slim chance the shortsightedness of some of my colleagues could spoil what is really an impressive deal.  Back in ‘88, he Guild gave up the future for a couple of momentary perks, and its been costing us ever since.  Traditionally, you don’t get things like that back after you give ‘em away, and we didn’t.

But this time, ironically, it was the bottom-line obsessed, quarter-to-quarter big media conglomerates who were willing to take the immediate (DVD-related) profits in exchange for letting the creative community gain a firm toehold in the future of entertainment.   Ultimately, gigantic companies are much more comfortable taking on future “operating costs” (us!) rather than let anything else interfere with this year’s earnings.

So, a quick sum-up:  Thanks for the honking.  We won!  Let’s not blow it.