• ANA Blogs, Tuesday, December 13, 2005 12:17 PM

If TV advertising is at the core of your marketing strategy, then be warned: negotiations with the actors' unions are less than a year away and are facing major challenges that could disrupt your best laid plans. In a wide-ranging Q&A interview on the subject, Association of National Advertisers President-CEO Bob Liodice talks with attorney Douglas Wood, who will represent the ad industry at the upcoming negotiations, which begin this spring.

Wood says problems lie ahead. "We've reached a critical crossroads," he says. "The current contracts are based upon a model first established in the 1950s when there were three networks and scattered independent affiliates. Today's media landscape is far more complicated, with new media outlets seeming to develop every week. The old contract model can't keep up and everyone, the industry and the unions, need to step back and take a new look at how talent is hired and paid for performances in commercials."

Wolf says that the ad industry has informally proposed to the unions that both parties stop the clock on the current contracts for a year and jointly commission a study from a nonpartisan expert to review the situation and propose options for both sides to consider.

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