“You’re Ugly & I Hate You” — WGA to the ATA Prob

This is an excerpt from the weekly entertainment industry newsletter The 11th Hour Dispatch. Subscribe to get analysis like this, live and in color in your inbox every Friday night.

Okay, a lot happened with talent agencies this week, so I’m going to break it down into a nice lil bulleted list for you. As a refresher for the 3007w5073th time, the WGA and the ATA are fighting over packaging fees — agencies packaging talent together for a project and taking a fee for doing so rather than the standard commission model — and agencies taking monetary stakes in productions by owning rights and production companies.

• Last week, WME and UTA both filed antitrust lawsuits against the Writers Guild of America, claiming that it was using its role as a bargaining authority as a “power grab” to bully the industry into submission.
• Following WME and UTA’s lawsuits, the WGA sent the Association of Talent Agents a cease and desist letter demanding it stop “anticompetitive behavior” and comply with the proposed Code of Conduct.
• CAA saw that, laughed, and also filed an antitrust lawsuit on Monday. That’s now three of the Big Four talent agencies taking the WGA to court.
• On Tuesday, the WGA rejected Abrams Artists Agency’s offer to drop packaging fees but not sign the WGA’s proposed code of conduct. An agreement here would have made Abrams the first mid-tier agency to find common ground with the WGA.
• Also on Tuesday, the WGA sent a letter to “hundreds of institutional investors, including hedge funds, mutual funds and pension plans, as well as investment advisors and industry analysts” detailing its battle with talent agencies and warning potential investors in Endeavor’s upcoming IPO that its “conflicted business practices” and looming litigation could jeopardize its revenue streams and profit margins.
• The WGA capped off the week by disclosing that WGA West member earnings hit an all-time high of $1.56 billion in the fiscal year that ended March 31.

Tune in next week when the great Los Angeles earthquake of July 4th has a delayed aftershock in the form of an avalanche of legal paperwork and a never-ending monsoon of industry vitriol. I know that’s not how earthquakes work, but I’m not in the mood for a geology lesson, so back off.