Adjusting Our Aims

I've never quite understood why organizations usually term their list of defining principles as Aims & Objectives. It would seem an exercise in redundancy. Nevertheless, the Caucus published its first such manifesto in 1973, and it consisted of some 16 basic goals, many of which remain basically unchanged today. Whether that is a measure of failure, quixotic foolishness, or resolute determination is for someone else to decide. In the last 24 years there have been five or six revisions of our Aims & Objectives, and now there is yet to be another submitted soon to the membership for ratification.

The need for revision has come with the way the television industry has itself undergone revision. The three once-dominant networks are no longer the only players in town, and, unfortunately, the newcomers to the game - other networks, cable companies and program services - have adopted the same ill considered policies of usurping or restricting the rightful perogatives of the creative community. Consequently, their presence on the scene has to be acknowledged.

In addition, some of our original aims and objectives are no longer relevant in today's world - either because the sins which they addressed have vanished or, more likely, because they have become so much a part of the established method of doing business that the Caucus would look foolish in trying to turn back the clock. True, some of our stated goals may still seem mere wishful thinking in view of the state of the industry today, but the purpose of listing our objectives is not only to catalogue the ills we believe are treatable but also to help define exactly what the Caucus is and what we stand for - the primacy of the creative community in creative matters.

One disturbing trend has also caused us to reappraise and rewrite these basic tenets, and that is the increasing consolidation of power among the gatekeepers of television. The resultant expansion of in-house production, the extension of creative approvals, the plateauing of license fees in an era of ever-growing production costs, and an apparent diminution of program diversity are problems that must be addressed - and if not by the Caucus, by whom?

A partial answer to this last question may be supplied by one of our new aims and objectives - a call for the industry to finally grant the Producers Guild of America a minimum basic agreement which would give them parity with the other creative union and guilds. Television is often called a producer's medium, and for the most part, that's true. Nevertheless, for much too long, the television producer has been deprived of the basic protections even a SAG day player enjoys. A credentialed and forceful PGA would be a welcome partner with the Caucus in the apparently unending battle against the encroachments of a television power structure which seems to be much more concerned with their corporate bottom line than in any desire to serve the public interest by improving the quality of their product.

The Aims & Objectives may seem to some an exercise in futility, but they reflect our deepest concerns. Whether revising them is only to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, or whether it is a clarion call for change depends solely on the strength of will of the Caucus membership.