Can Steve Jobs End the Writers' Strike?

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5% of what the studios get for "permanent pay downloads," or downloads you store on a device, as well as for temporary downloads that can be viewed for only 24 hours before they evaporate, or from the movies and TV shows that are streamed to a computer or mobile device and include commercials.

The Hollywood brass has a whole different notion of what it should pay, and no surprise, it's far less. During the short-lived negotiations this December before the writers hit the picket lines, the studios offered the same 1.2% for TV shows that are streamed on the Net, though not until after they have already been online for six weeks at a fixed rate of $250.

The big thing that has kept the two sides from coming together is that studio executives insist there's no market as yet for new media and they don't want to get caught up in making expansive deals with the unions until there is one. Indeed, in their first go-round, the studios suggested they conduct a three-year study to determine the size of the market.

Now, with the rash of announcements from Microsoft, TiVo, Apple, and others, the question of whether a market is developing appears to be moot. Studio executives already are selling ads for their online shows, many of them using the same ad salesmen who hawk time on their TV shows. And while the revenue they get from downloads isn't large in a relative sense, it is reaching millions of dollars. (NBC's Jeff Zucker recently said his company got $15 million alone from TV show downloads through Apple's iTunes—not huge, but significant.)

Toward a Settlement

All of this activity—and the almost certain Jobs-generated visibility—may nudge things in the direction of a settlement. Even before Jobs' expected Macworld announcement, there has been some movement in the writers' strike. The writers struck deals with smaller studios, including the Weinstein Co. and David Letterman's Worldwide Pants, that would give writers 2% for TV shows that are downloaded or streamed from the Net.

The studios, which began negotiating with the Directors Guild of America on Jan. 12, are already moving in the direction of offering something for movies and TV shows delivered via broadband. The studios likely will settle for less than the 2.5% the WGA is demanding, and they will end up giving it to the directors, who tend to be less hostile to the suits than the writers.

As for Jobs, he will have helped push along those talks just by helping to create a market that the Hollywood guys say doesn't exist.

Grover is Los Angeles bureau chief for BusinessWeek.