Agreements subject to ratification by union members
The national board of the combined Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) has unanimously approved the recently negotiated TV and radio commercials agreements, which must still be ratified by union members via mail and electronic voting next month.
SAG-AFTRA members who are eligible to vote will receive a postcard with ballot instructions explaining how to vote electronically or how to request a paper ballot. This postcard will be mailed to members on or about May 1, 2013. Ratification votes received by the deadline of May 31 at 5 pm PDT will be tabulated that same day.
Member ratification is regarded as a fait accompli. The contracts will result in $238 million in wage increases and other payments for all categories of performers, improvements in cable use fees, higher payments for work on the Internet and new media platforms, and an increase in the late payment fee. The new deal represents a six percent average wage and payment increase.
The agreements came out of formal negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA)-American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) Joint Policy Committee (JPC)–those formal talks began on Feb. 14 and concluded on April 6.
The new deal also mandates universal adoption of AD-ID, a provision long sought by the ANA. Ad-ID is the industry coding standard for identifying advertising assets across all media platforms. Use of Ad-ID will provide the necessary identification required by all parties for fair talent compensation. Per the JPC/SAG-AFTRA accord, all commercials produced for television, radio and digital platforms featuring SAG-AFTRA union members, must now use Ad-ID as the sole standard commercial identifier. A grace period through March 31, 2014 will be provided for conversion.
Ad-ID is a web-based system that generates and manages a unique identifying code for each advertising asset and applies that code to all media. Valid Ad-ID codes can only be issued from the Ad-ID system and include all basic information regarding the advertising asset. Ad-ID has developed extensive educational materials posted on http://www.ad-id.org/user-support including webinars, videos and FAQs to help the marketing community make this transition.
“This mandate is a critical step forward for Ad-ID and the advertising industry as a whole,” said Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA, and CEO of Ad-ID. “Full adoption of Ad-ID will enable greater transparency and accountability and eliminate costly errors associated with the inconsistent use of advertising asset identifiers. To ensure consistency with the SAG-AFTRA contract provisions, we strongly recommend that the transition to Ad-ID codes for all television, radio and digital commercial production begin as soon as possible.”
In October 2012, Ad-ID was unanimously endorsed by the boards of directors of the AAAA and ANA as the industry standard for commercial advertising coding.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More