《考研英語(yǔ)閱讀理解100篇 高分版》 Unit 6 - TEXT THREE

Thousands of writers in Los Angeles and New York went on strike this week, risking their incomes and careers. They want more money for their work when it is used online than Hollywood studios are willing to pay. Because the strike is over matters of principle, not just dollars and cents, it could last for months. The immediate effect was to shut down late-night talk shows, including Late Show with David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. If the last writers' strike, in 1988, is any guide, the talk shows will stay silent for a couple of months before going back on air without scripts. Soaps will be next to go, in a week or two; then prime-time dramas, a few weeks later. Some say the film business is safe, because studios have stockpiled scripts. But scripts often need tweaking by writers at the last minute.
Media companies argue that the market has become increasingly competitive and uncertain for many reasons, including Internet piracy and tumbling box-office receipts. They want to cut writers' income from “residuals”, which are payments made when a TV show is re-used. The writers are determined not to repeat the mistake they made in 1985, when they listened to the studios' plea that home video was an unproven new market and agreed to a residual payment of 0.3%, which translates into about four cents for each sale of a DVD—or one-tenth of what DVD-box manufacturers get. The writers now want a residual payment of 2.5% for re-use of material online and on mobile phones.
The studios say that Internet delivery is the same as home video, so the old rate still applies. And they refuse to pay anything to writers when content is streamed over the Internet free to viewers, supported by ads, because this is merely “promotion”. Both sides made last-minute concessions on traditional-media payments. But because new-media rights are so critical to the future earnings of writers and studios, neither was willing to compromise.
Who will suffer the most? “The strike won't affect most studios unless the writers stay out three to five months,” says a senior executive at a media conglomerate. Because writers on reality and animation programmes are not unionised, the networks will be able to switch to other forms of programming; sport will fill the gaps, too. But Moody's, a credit-rating agency, reckons that a strike lasting into late 2008 would have a serious financial impact. Broadcast networks and premium-cable channels would be hurt most, because they rely most on first-run scripted shows.
Some writers, of course, are wealthy. “I'm walking the picket line with some guys who are worth millions,” says Lou DiMaggio, a reality- and game-show writer who won an Emmy award for Win Ben Stein's Money. But the vast majority of writers, he says, earn about $50,000-75,000 a year. Mr. DiMaggio says he backed out of buying a house because of the strike; junior writers may have to go back to waiting tables. Luckily for Hollywood, however, most scribes are too devoted to their calling to be put off. Gary Goldman, a writer picketing outside Fox Studios who has worked on science-fiction thrillers such as Minority Report, says that many writers will spend their free time working on screenplays that they hope to sell to the studios on spec.
1. Which one of the following statements is TRUE of the strike?
[A] The mere aim of this strike is to increase writers' income in general.
[B] The strike is mainly relevant to the issue of scripts used on TV show and primary dramas.
[C] The strike will be effective only if it lasts for a long time.
[D] Whether the film industry will be affected by the strike or not is open to question.
2. The writers made a mistake in the strike of 1985 because _____.
[A] the studios' offer of payment increase was satisfactory
[B] they readily believed the studios' excuse out of a false judgment
[C] the union failed to unite the majority of the writers
[D] the market prospect of home videos was not so competitive and uncertain
3. Finally the writers and the studios made a compromise on _____.
[A] the TV show payments
[B] the payments of the online drama shows
[C] the payments of the mobile phone shows
[D] the payments of Internet shows
4. The word “unionised” (Line 3, Paragraph 4) most probably means _____.
[A] united
[B]organized
[C] established
[D] arranged
5. The screenplays are written by the writers in their free time will be sold to the studios _____.
[A] on a special offer
[B] with no guarantee of profit
[C] on special occasions
[D] as a speculation