Not only is it more reason to cancel soaps, but what does it matter if they get what they want and soaps are cancelled? Then you have hundreds of writers out of a job and thousands of employee's. After soaps are cancelled, we'll have no chance of getting soaps on DVD. I also highly doubt we'll be seeing any new soaps on the net or reruns. I imagine the PGP channel at AOL.com will continue, but that's it. NBC and ABC have shown zero interest in soaps, so they'd be gone completely.

I know what he said, Ponz. And sorry - argument that they write crap and thus the networks shouldn't pay them is just ridiculous. Craig Mazin is writing Scary Movies and is a marquee screenwriter, but he still gets the money. Plus, ever more increasingly those same networks are dictating the stories so it's not just the writers' fault that the ratings are falling.

Oh, and poor soap writers - they have already earned millions, you shouldn't worry about them. They are one of the highest paid niche in screenwriting, given the amount of material they produce and their minimums...

Edited November 10, 200718 yr by Sylph

Not only is it more reason to cancel soaps, but what does it matter if they get what they want and soaps are cancelled? Then you have hundreds of writers out of a job and thousands of employee's.

They have already earned big bucks. That's not a reason to worry about. And it's better to cancel them then to see all this trash thrown at us daily.

Unfortunately, Chris, you have lost your credibility in the Latham discussions given that you defended her fervently and spit on Kay Alden and the next morning you were all against Antoinette and her vampires who are sucking all the blood left in Y&R's body. And that is a shame - you have lots of great things to say.

After soaps are cancelled, we'll have no chance of getting soaps on DVD. I also highly doubt we'll be seeing any new soaps on the net or reruns. I imagine the PGP channel at AOL.com will continue, but that's it. NBC and ABC have shown zero interest in soaps, so they'd be gone completely.

So what. People will live with it.

Edited November 10, 200718 yr by Sylph

Toups....do writers get paid for episodes that air on SOAPnet?

Yes they do.

So if the WGA never negotiated about writers getting paid for repeats airing on cable, the writers would be getting nothing.

So right now, it's about the internet, instead of cable.

I think he's saying that soaps should air two or three days a week during the strike. I think that would be smart, to stretch out the episodes they have. If they have to use scab writers, I'd like them to have time to find and train people who won't completely screw things up. I recall reading that during the 1981 strike, an actor in the cast became headwriter to avoid his character being killed off. Does anybody want Ronn Moss writing B&B? Austin Peck at ATWT? Not me. Besides, don't the CBS soaps do well on the weeks when they air three episodes due to the sports?

During the strike, all shows should air on Mon, Wed & Fri with repeats on Tue & Thu. When the strike is over, all shows should air Mon, Wed-Fri. If Y&R gets six million viewers on Mon, then Tues' repeat is guaranteed at least one million with 80% watching it for the first time, bringing the total audience to at least seven million. GH did that on Labor Day, and that episode's total audience was at least five million viewers, making it GH's highest rated show so far this year.

Ron Moss head writer for B&B? Ridge & "Logan" Round 200.

Here's what Matt P. thinks about 30 minute editions: http://boards.soapoperanetwork.com/index.p...amp;hl=salaries

Unfortunately, Chris, you have lost your credibility in the Latham discussions given that you defended her fervently and spit on Kay Alden and the next morning you were all against Antoinette and her vampires who are sucking all the blood left in Y&R's body. And that is a shame - you have lots of great things to say.

I lost absolutely no credibility. While being a LML fan, I still acknowledged and complained about the numerous faults last year. In particular, Nick/Phyllis, the general writing for Phyllis, lack of Nikki/Jill/Kay, destruction of the Abbott family, bizarre and inconsistant writing for Dru and Neil among other things. Hardly blindly following her. Also, we can see now that last year's success was largely due to the other writers, not LML. I've acknowledged that as well. My dislike of LML is something gradual that happened Nov2006-February07 when they show hit rock bottom.

She was also deserving of most of the respect she initially got considering the great things she did at Knots Landing and Homefront.

As for Kay Alden or Jack Smith, yes they had their faults which I still acknowlege. Kay Alden with the dreadful sperm swapping (only topped by some of LML's stories) and 2005 was a rough year, but we now know Jack Smith's son was dying. I think he can get a pass on that.

But what does any of this have to do with the writers strike?

And it's better to cancel them then to see all this trash thrown at us daily.

Right now B&B and OLTL are in great shape, quality-wise, so why cancel them? And how many times have soaps been in horrible shape, but managed to make a turnaround? Lets not forget, ATWT pretty much died with Douglas Marland, but they managed to turn it around. I'm sure nobody expected OLTL to improve either and look at it.

It would be silly to cancel soaps over this strike.

Edited November 10, 200718 yr by Chris B

During the strike, all shows should air on Mon, Wed & Fri with repeats on Tue & Thu. When the strike is over, all shows should air Mon, Wed-Fri. If Y&R gets six million viewers on Mon, then Tues' repeat is guaranteed at least one million with 80% watching it for the first time, bringing the total audience to at least seven million. GH did that on Labor Day, and that episode's total audience was at least five million viewers, making it GH's highest rated show so far this year.

But this is network television, not a college class schedule! If you are going to air the soaps like that, they need to be aired concecutively and not skipped around.. I'm all for a model like PASSIONS on DirecTV: Air four days a weeks. And from there, either a cheesy weekly recap on Friday or a classic episode.

Ron Moss head writer for B&B? Ridge & "Logan" Round 200.

Actually, Ronn Moss has been very vocal about NOT wanting Ridge to hook up with Brooke for the umpeenth time. If Ronn Moss were writing the show, no doubt we'd revisit Ridge and Ashley. If it wasn't for the way their breakup was written and the crappy way Brooke used her own RAPE to get Ridge in her bed, I'd eagerly want B&B to give me the Rash. But Ashley and Eileen deserve a million times better than to get involved in Ridge and Brooke's bullcrap.

Why the ratings rise when Ridge and Brooke get back together is BEYOND ME!

Edited November 10, 200718 yr by bellcurve

Found this LA Times article:

For Marla Kanelos, the Writers Guild of America strike is shaping up like a soap opera story line. She should know; she's been writing daytime dramas for the last decade.

The 38-year-old WGA member, who until last week wrote for "All My Children," adopted a Russian orphan earlier this year. Her 19-month-old daughter came to California in April when a strike "seemed like a far-off possibility." Between the expensive adoption process, which cost well more than $35,000, and last year's purchase of a modest two-bedroom home in Sacramento where she writes, the single mother's personal savings are all but wiped out.

"I'm terrified," said Kanelos, who has been living paycheck to paycheck since the adoption. "This is not fun. This is not what I wanted to happen, but I will get a job at Starbucks before I'll cave.

"I love my daughter," she added. "But I don't have to support her by writing for the soaps. I'll do it some other way."

Networks say, despite the strike, they have stockpiled enough soap opera scripts to last into early next year. Many soap producers have vowed to keep their shows going even after the scripts run out by either writing them themselves or hiring non-union writers.

Kanelos' decision to strike was weighed as carefully as her earlier one to adopt Stella. And at first, neither idea seemed terribly compelling. But research, talking to family and friends, and personal experience came together to galvanize her resolve in both cases.

For much of her life, Kanelos, who also wrote for the soap "Port Charles" for seven years before it was canceled, wanted to have a family of her own. She'd always told herself that if she wasn't married by her late 30s, she'd adopt. So, when a serious relationship broke up a few years ago, she realized it was time.

Adoption was her only thought thanks to a vivid memory from when she was 8. On a weekday morning an unfamiliar man brought a 2-year-old girl dressed in "footsie pajamas" to their family's door. The man said he'd found the child on the street and that he had to get work, but asked if they could call the police.

"I remember asking my mom if we could just keep her," recalled Kanelos, who grew up in Sacramento. "It hit my heart so hard that this little girl was so unwanted."

Nearly three decades later, Kanelos found herself flying to Russia to meet another unclaimed little girl. Before arriving at the orphanage, Kanelos didn't even know what the child she would soon be raising as her own looked like.

"They brought Stella out to me and I put my arms around her," said Kanelos. "She looked like she could biologically be my daughter. It's just one of those things where fate leads you to a certain place and it just seemed like she was born to be my daughter."

Less than a year after one life-changing choice, Kanelos soon faced another. The rumblings about a writers strike were growing louder and became harder to ignore as she continued to hammer out her roughly 80 weekly pages of script for "All My Children."

"At first I was like, 'This isn't a daytime fight,' " said Kanelos, who has been writing for "All My Children" for three years.

The once massive audience for soaps has been steadily eroding over the years largely because of popular daytime talk shows and the explosion of cable channels. Kanelos said "All My Children's" ratings today, which are considered respectable, would have got a show canceled five years ago.

"The soaps are probably going to be the first shows to head to the Internet," said Kanelos, who first broke into the soaps after interning for "Days of Our Lives" and later lived in Los Angeles for years. "That's why the fight over compensation for new media is so important."

On the strike's second day, Kanelos was reminded of why she walked off the job. She was with Stella at the pediatrician's office.

"She just had a cold, but it felt good to know we have health benefits," said Kanelos, who flew down to Los Angeles on Thursday to join the picket lines in front of Prospect Studios in Los Feliz. "I can't afford to lose those benefits or my pension."

Already, the strike has meant cutting back, of course. She let go her 26-year-old niece who was her nanny. Going out to eat is a memory. And impulses to buy Stella new "cutesy" clothes are restrained.

In another month, Kanelos may have to dip into her home's equity. She may even apply for a loan from the Writers Guild, which has an emergency pool of about $12 million available to members to get them through the strike.

But eventually she'll have to find another job.

"This is for my future," said Kanelos. "Not only mine, but also my daughter's."

/\

That story breaks my heart!

During the strike, all shows should air on Mon, Wed & Fri with repeats on Tue & Thu. When the strike is over, all shows should air Mon, Wed-Fri. If Y&R gets six million viewers on Mon, then Tues' repeat is guaranteed at least one million with 80% watching it for the first time, bringing the total audience to at least seven million. GH did that on Labor Day, and that episode's total audience was at least five million viewers, making it GH's highest rated show so far this year.

Ron Moss head writer for B&B? Ridge & "Logan" Round 200.

Here's what Matt P. thinks about 30 minute editions: http://boards.soapoperanetwork.com/index.p...amp;hl=salaries

We know soaps will not return to 30 minutes though. They'll either be 1 hour or 0 minutes. Most advertising money comes from the second half hour.

Marla.

Wow that was a nice story.

I love hearing about the personal lives of writers, especially ones that like that.

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?

In 1988, the entire "Written by" section was removed from the closing credits.

But this is network television, not a college class schedule! If you are going to air the soaps like that, they need to be aired concecutively and not skipped around.. I'm all for a model like PASSIONS on DirecTV: Air four days a weeks. And from there, either a cheesy weekly recap on Friday or a classic episode.

Actually, Ronn Moss has been very vocal about NOT wanting Ridge to hook up with Brooke for the umpeenth time. If Ronn Moss were writing the show, no doubt we'd revisit Ridge and Ashley. If it wasn't for the way their breakup was written and the crappy way Brooke used her own RAPE to get Ridge in her bed, I'd eagerly want B&B to give me the Rash. But Ashley and Eileen deserve a million times better than to get involved in Ridge and Brooke's bullcrap.

Why the ratings rise when Ridge and Brooke get back together is BEYOND ME!

I totally agree.... And Eileen Davidson actually brings out what little spark exists in Ronn Moss.

The WGA's YouTube's Profile: http://www.youtube.com/user/wgaamerica

The "Why We Fight" video was interesting. One of the WGAs demands is to double their pay rate for DVDs to eight cents.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21696189/

By Stuart Levine

MSNBC contributor

updated 1 hour, 1 minute ago

Rhetoric has turned into rage. Negotiations are over, deader than the unfortunate saps caught in the wrong place at the wrong time in the opening moments of every “Six Feet Under” episode.

The first question in Hollywood these days isn’t “What’s your Oscar movie?” but, rather, “Whose side are you on?”

Almost a week into the melee, the most surprising aspect of the walkout is how acrimonious it’s become. Writers have always felt like the ugly stepchildren in town, and they have a good point.

Nobody comes out of a George Clooney movie saying, “Geez,

that’s the best script I’ve heard in years” nor are people watching “Grey’s

Anatomy” because of Patrick Dempsey’s alliteration when spooning with Ellen

Pompeo.

Sure, casting is vital to any film

or TV success but the written word is where it’s at. A TV series could have 100

Clooneys and Dempseys but if what they’re saying is gibberish, nobody’s going to

care. And showrunners, those folks whose job it is to make sure the production

is on time, under budget and top notch in quality, know it too.

You see, most showrunners came to

TV as writers. If they’re lucky enough to have their script turned into a pilot

and then the show is picked up by a network, they often are told by the studios

that they’re now in charge. Of everything.

So someone who wrote a 23-minute

sitcom script is now suddenly in charge of casting, weekly production schedules,

hiring a writing staff and dealing with studio and network executives, among

countless other things. But, at heart, they still consider themselves writers

first and foremost, and that’s why they’ve decided to walk the picket lines this

week with their fellow scribes, infuriating the networks and studios sitting on

the other side of the bargaining table.

The show won't go on

The producers knew the showrunners wouldn’t do any writing while a strike was on, but figured they could edit episodes, talk to the actors on set, deal with monetary issues — non-writing concerns that would keep TV productions on track as best as possible.

Wrong. Showrunners were quick, and smart, to realize that they need to walk into that writers’ room after the strike is resolved and weren’t about to stab their friends and colleagues in the back. They feel passionate about the importance of writing and aren’t about to do anything to jeopardize that relationship with their fellow writers.

Plus, producers were naïve to not realize that rewriting sitcom dialogue continues right up through taping in front of a studio audience, and that was never going to happen.

So no showrunner means no production. Hence, we’ve now seen the set doors closing quickly on “24,” “The Office,” “Family Guy,” “Back to You,” “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Til Death” (though that might actually be fortunate). Everyone knew shows would eventually shut down, just not this fast.

As a matter of fact, not only is “24” suspending production but Fox just canceled its January premiere date. There’s no new start date because Fox execs don’t want to stop the season in mid-stream and halt any momentum, which would inevitably alienate viewers.

And how has the Producers Guild responded to this somewhat unexpected showrunner-Writers Guild unity? By firing the staffs of the showrunners’ production companies on the lots around town, turning off their phone lines and disconnecting their e-mail. Well, at least they’re handling it like adults, eh?

Now both sides are more entrenched than ever, with little resolution in sight. The writers are thinking that with production stoppages occurring sooner rather than later, the producers will be frightened that they’ll have nothing but reality to air in a few weeks and will cave.

With holidays approaching ...

Even before several series turned off the lights, the affects of the strike have been seen nightly. The late-night talk shows immediately launched into repeats, as the writers from the staffs of David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno and Craig Ferguson are all under the WGA contract. And HBO just canceled the final episode of "Real Time With Bill Maher." (For some reason, writers from daytime talkers such as “Live With Regis and Kelly” are allowed to work.)

The late-night repeats have an affect in the movie world as well. Ever notice that guests on Thursday and Friday nights are often chatting about their latest film releases that weekend? It’s all part of a studio’s publicity campaign and if the couch is closed to actors promoting their movies, studio coffers could take a dip.

There was talk that as the midnight deadline approached Nov. 4, both sides were closing in on a possible deal. Some are angry that the writers walked when a contract could’ve been hammered out, avoiding all this tumult.

But much of the blame could also be put on the producers for implementing a resolution to lower residuals to writers, knowing the plan would never fly and only infuriate the other side. There’s nothing more important to a writer than residual checks, especially in a town where one moment you’re king and the next you’re a has-been. Many a story has been told — no less than by “Desperate Housewives” creator Marc Cherry — about how those residuals can mean the difference between paying the mortgage one month or having to sell your house.

So here we are. Shows are halting in midseason and writers are picking up picket signs rather than checks. Get used to it. As bad as it is now, it could get even uglier.