WGA reminds Late Night hosts : no writing, at all
By fred | December 17, 2007
So now that both Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien have announced their intention to go back in the air, the Writers Guilds of America is reminding everyone, including the two hosts, and members of the WGA, of the pre-approved “Strike Rules pertaining to Comedy/Variety” sent to all comedy writers before the strike.
This, to make sure that, while writers themselves and able to come up with material on their own, they should not. The writer in them is still striking, and they are only returning on the air as hosts, to allow non-writing staff to work. A WGA spokesperson said that “these are the rules we expect all the hosts to adhere to if they go back on the air without their writers, who will still be on strike“.
The Council of the Writers Guild of America, East, Inc. and the Board of Directors of Writers Guild of America, West, Inc. (collectively the “Guild”), have adopted Strike Rules which will go into effect if the Guild calls a strike. The Strike Rules, among other provisions, prohibit Guild members from performing any writing services during a strike for any and all struck companies. This prohibition includes all writing by any Guild member that would be performed on-air by that member (including monologues, characters, and featured appearances) if any portion of that written material is customarily written by striking writers.
Once again, with no monologues, no sketches, likely no interview (with guests refusing to cross picket lines in order to show up), there isn’t much left there. Thinking about it, there’s actually nothing left. And I personally wish this is what they’d do on the air : nothing. Talk about the strike, explain the situation, and then just sit back and wait.
Wait for the AMPTP to go back and accept to negotiate again, wait for a deal to be worked out, wait for writers to come back, or at the very least for wait Letterman to be back, with his writers, so you can watch his show… Just wait, like we all do, wait and hope for them morons to stop acting like dicks and go back to bargain.
By the way, as noted before CBS isn’t too happy with Letterman’s move, and now the Big Media moguls have sent out an ad to let everyone knows that they’re all still very united.
Though - besides the obvious lie - as the great Nikki Finke noted, there is just one problem with this whole thing : “legal sources tell me the ad also exposes potential issues relating to collusion, price-fixing, and anti-trust among the Big Media companies who are supposed to be business competitors“.
Yep, if there’s one thing this shows is that those greedy assholes aren’t competitors, they’re all working together. If not, NBC would be working out a deal with the WGA right now, making sure Leno & Conan would get their writers as well. In fact, there might even be a race between networks, trying to be the first one to have their late night shows back on with writers.
But as Fine wrote, that’s not what’s going on. Not at all. Instead, “all they’re doing is boasting about how great their 4th quarters are going to look because of those pesky salaries and productions costs they didn’t have to pay. Why, they’ll probably get bigger bonuses for perpetuating the strike by walking out of the talks. And maybe — if they’re really really lucky, and their collective plan to overhaul the movie and TV business succeeds — they’ll figure out a way to provide entertainment without those expensive “assets who all go home at night” entirely.”
After months of strike, things are getting pretty ugly and do not look any brighter. In fact, according to some entertainment lawyer, it won’t get any better soon. Predictions are that “it’ll be a month or two before the two sides even bargain again“.Well, happy holidays!
