CBS - which has a couple of shows I watch online through streaming - doesn't seems to have commercials. Whenever I watch CSI:NY online, I see it straight through without commercials. Which seems pretty odd to me. I usually watch it first thing Thursday morning, so maybe they introduce the commercials later on?

When it comes to those handy streaming full episodes -- you know, the ones with the IMBEDDED commercials that you can't skip? -- nothing. Nada. They're calling that "promotional."

Right, I've heard that, but the WGA video mentions an offer to give the DVD rate for Internet views. Is that different from the "promotional" bullshit? What were they actually offering to pay residuals for, then? Like Amazon Unbox and Netflix downloading?

Thanks for that other video. I didn't know there were other issues on the table, that the WGA felt...threatened.

Is that different from the "promotional" bullshit? What were they actually offering to pay residuals for, then? Like Amazon Unbox and Netflix downloading?

That's what I understood. That they'd get cheaptastic residuals for things like Unbox or iTunes.

Which again brings me to my original question: how do DVD residuals work? If they are willing to offer the four cents for an iTunes download of an episode, that means it's a per-episode thing, right? When you buy a DVD set, four cents goes to the writer(s) (if an episode is co-written, do they split the four cents?) of each episode? That would make sense to me.

Whenever I watch CSI:NY online, I see it straight through without commercials. Which seems pretty odd to me. I usually watch it first thing Thursday morning, so maybe they introduce the commercials later on?

CSI Old School does--at the beginning of each segment, so it's about 4. I used to like their interface, but it's bugging the hell out of me lately.

Spied this on the interweb: [link]

PC, I don't think it is a flat 4 cents, I think it is a percentage. So, they would get the same percentage of the download as the DVD, but the cost for the download is less.

Aw, I know the girl who delivered the fruit to the SPN folk!

Oh, and their Facebook group appears to answer my question: 4 cents per disc. And that gets distributed to the writers of the episodes on that disc? So, basically, a penny for each writer? HOT DAMN. And where does all the other money go? How does the writer rate compare to the actor/director/anyone else rate? I assume most of the money goes to overhead and then corporate profit.

PC, I don't think it is a flat 4 cents, I think it is a percentage. So, they would get the same percentage of the download as the DVD, but the cost for the download is less.

It's .3%. I think the 4 cents comes from the average DVD price ($20) times the .3%. (Except this equals 6 cents, so maybe I'm wrong.)

I think the 4 cents comes from the average DVD price ($20)

That's the average movie DVD price. But TV-on-DVD usually sells for three times that, MSRP.