From KCRW in Santa Monica, I'm Matt Holesman sitting in for proud new Papa Claude Brodesser

Ackner, and this is the business.

So you still want to do the show business, and you think that you got what it takes.

I mean, you really got a rap and be all at.

And prepare yourself for the breaks.

Check it out.

To understand the current writer's strike, you need to understand the long and contentious relationship

between screenwriters and the people who write the checks.

This week on The Business,

we'll put that relationship on the therapist's couch

with Oscar-winning scribe Mark Norman.

He's written a new book called What Happens Next,

A History of American Screenwriting.

Stick around.

It's The Business from NPR.

On the face of it, the current writer's strike is about writers wanting a bigger piece of the

what happens next pie. Right now, they're mostly talking about money from internet streaming and downloads, but who knows what it'll be in the near future.

The studios for their part are pleading poverty, and shocking as that claim seems, it may have some truth to it.

The studios have made such outrageous profit participation deals with producers, actors, and directors

that they're seeing smaller returns even as movie grosses go up.

Of course, with Hollywood's fuzzy accounting practices, it's hard to know who's really making what,

which makes having a meaningful conversation between the parties that much more difficult.

...