Barry Diller Says Strikes Settlements Needed By Sept. 1, Says Execs And Stars Should Take 25 Percent Pay Cuts

Barry Diller, the former head of ABC, Fox Broadcasting Company, and Paramount and current Chairman and Senior Executive, IAC and Expedia Group, stirred the pot during an appearance Sunday on CBS talk show “Face the Nation.”

Diller had several suggestions on Hollywood for host Margaret Brennan, and comments that are bound to be controversial.

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Among them:

*** As a good-faith measure, Diller said the executives and the “most-paid” actors should take a 25% pay cut to try and narrow the difference between those who get highly paid and those that don’t.

*** He suggested a Sept. 1 strike settlements deadline. Otherwise, “next year, there’s not going to be many programs for anybody to watch. So, you’re going to see subscriptions get pulled, which is going to reduce the revenue of all these movie companies, television companies, the result of which is that there will be no programs.”

*** That “perfect storm,” Diller said,” “will potentially produce an absolute collapse of an entire industry.”

*** Artificial intelligence fears are “overhyped,” Diller claimed. “Yes, you can ingest all this stuff and spit out something that sounds like Shakespeare, but guess what? It is not original Shakespeare. And writers will get assisted, not replaced. Most of these actual performing crafts, I don’t think are in danger of artificial intelligence.”

Diller also said a leading group of publishers, which he refused to name, are contemplating legal action to prevent AI from scraping and utiizing their data without compensation. He was vague on the details of who, what and when.

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