Writer's Strike Thread

[Khan]

Pardon me, but...what the frak is going on here?

[TC]

If you are not a PEPSI STEER, you have no business asking!

[Khan]

Well, I'm not a PEPSI STEER (whatever that is), but instead of telling you where you can stick your attitude, I'll just suggest you, and Vee, and whoever else, take your petty, incomprehensible squabbling someplace where the rest of us aren't being subjected to it.

[TC]

Oh, lighten up. You're talking about a handful of satirical posts out of a 20 page thread.

and "stick" my attitude? I hope that's not the same "stick" you need to pull out of your rear end. Because I want nothing to do with it.

[Vee]

God'll get you for that, TC.

God and Kobe Beef.

"KHHHAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!"

(echo) "....khhhaaaaaannnnnn!!!!"

[TC]

Oops! Just keeping it all clean.

[Khan]

I didn't realize you and Vee were kidding around. My bad.

[Sylph]

Here's more:

2 Studios Escalate Actions Against Striking Writers

By EDWARD WYATT

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 8 — At least two major television studios, 20th Century Fox and CBS Paramount, have sent breach-of-contract letters to the show runners on their current series who have stopped performing their production duties once they went on strike with other television writers.

The move is an escalation of hardball tactics by the studios. This week, the studios said they expected that the show runners — the writer-producers who oversee some of the biggest hits on television — would continue to work on the shows by performing nonwriting duties.

But after many of the industry’s top show runners said publicly that they did not intend to do any work as long as the strike by members of the Writers Guild of America continued, the studios began notifying the writer-producers that they would no longer be paid as producers if they failed to show up at work.

CBS Paramount — the studio behind hits like “CSI” and its spinoffs and “Rules of Engagement,” which are broadcast on CBS, and “Medium,” on NBC — began sending the letters this week after some show runners did not show up for work once the writers’ strike began on Monday, according to a person involved in the production of network television shows who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A spokesman for 20th Century Fox said the studio — whose shows include “Prison Break,” on Fox, “The Unit” on CBS and “My Name Is Earl” on NBC — said its letter notified writer-producers that their pay was being suspended in response to their failure “to report to work and render their nonwriting producing services.”

As executive producers on the programs that they often created, show runners have many duties in addition to writing, including casting, overseeing sound mixing and editing footage into 22- or 44-minute television episodes.

But many show runners have said they believed that they could not perform those broader duties without simultaneously continuing as writers, and that therefore they intended to stay away from work altogether.

That put a crimp in the plans of most of the major television studios to finish production of episodes of series that already had scripts finished before the beginning of the strike.

Most television series have nonwriting producers who have continued to work while the Writers Guild is on strike, allowing the studios in some cases to continue production. But some series have already shut production, including NBC Universal’s “The Office,” and four comedies that are on CBS on Monday nights: “How I Met Your Mother,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “Two and a Half Men” and “Rules of Engagement.”

In a meeting Wednesday afternoon, a group of more than 100 show runners who had picketed together outside the headquarters of the Walt Disney Company that morning, agreed that they would be willing to go back to work if the two sides — the Writers Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — would return to the bargaining table in good faith, according to a show runner who participated in the meeting.

[Wendy]

From the Deadline Hollywood blog:

Soap opera sources tell me that the soaps continue production during a strike even after they’ve run out of Guild-covered scripts by hiring new writers for the duration (and protect their anonymity so there are no repercussions against them). But this time out there seems to be a new wrinkle. Word is ABC, which owns all the soaps it airs, is sending notices to its writers advising them to elect Financial Core status with the Guild and return to work -- or their jobs might not be available when the strike is over.

(Me: Explanation of financial core status as I understand it is the writers can elect to be non-voting members of the guild, but there is no guarantee the WGA will let the writers back in once the strike is over.)

[Sylph]

When the WGA goes on strike, some shows can remain in production for a while on what they have in the pipeline. It runs out first on the soap operas and those are sometimes able to keep going with scab writers. In '88, I recall picketing with a lady who was one of the main writers of a popular daytime drama and the strike was true agony for her. Not only had it disrupted her life but it was destroying the lives of these characters she cared about. She had carefully planned that Fred would divorce Jessica and find true love with Heather, whom he'd gotten pregnant...and now the scabs had Heather try to murder Fred, reveal it was Pete's baby she was carrying and run off with Sidney — or whatever it was. "When we get back, it's going to take me months to get some emotional logic back into those characters," the striking writer said. She was actually considering not going back because, as she put it, her "novel had been ruined."

OK, does anyone know which soap opera was this guy talking about?  

[dawn9476]

With the word that ABC is using Scab writers, how would that work in term of the credits? On the ITZ the other night, they said that Scab writers would be treated like Ghost writers. So what would come up in the credits as the writers? Would it just not come up? Or would they use fake names?

[Ryan]

I got the following from this link: http://welovesoaps.blogspot.com/2007/11/st...gh-writers.html

[Vee]

Truly sad.

[bellcurve]

Scabs, although they will keep the soaps going, worry me for two reasons:

a ) it can be a GREAT opportunity for Frons, JFP, Lynn Latham, or Barbara Bloom to permanently kill off a vet or a pivotal character and blame it on the scabs. At GH, JFP or Frons could use this as an opportunity to kill off the rest of the Q's, Alexis, or even Luke at this point. I can see Frons/Carruthers killing off a character like Tad during the strike. Same for anyone over 40 at OLTL. I don't think anything is beneath the brass at ABC.

b ) newer writers like Ron Carlivari and(not my opinion, but the opinion of some) Hogan Sheffer, Brown/Esenten, etc. that are improving their shows may be fired and replaced with the scabs by the time the strike is over.

I hope in this age of the internet, scabs are sniffed out, exposed, and barred from writing for the WGA. EVER. I don't think our shows(with the exception of the PGP shows maybe) will get better with the strike. ABC is screwed, IMO. Frons is just salivating to ruin what is left of all three ABC shows and homogenize them even more or turn them into what he thinks the shows should be.

[Toups]

Alright, so ABC is already using scabs and writers who went on financial core status. Still no word if DAYS or CBS will continue production?

As the strike goes on, I wonder how many more writers (maybe those writers who are thinking of retiring soon?) will decide to go on financial core status.