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Hollywood focuses on fast end to long strike


The guild and studios are near a deal. Work could resume Monday.
By Meg James, Matea Gold and Maria Elena Fernandez, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
February 8, 2008
Hollywood could be back on its feet as early as Monday.

The major studios and the Writers Guild of America are putting the finishing touches on a deal that could bring an end to the costly walkout. Today the two sides are expected to finalize a three-year contract that guild leaders plan to present to thousands of writers in Los Angeles and New York on Saturday. The guild board could approve the contract Sunday and encourage writers to return to work the next day, according to people close to the negotiations.

Related Stories
- The Strike Zone: The latest news, blogs & photos on the WGA strike

Studio executives and TV producers have been preparing for that day for the last two weeks, hoping to salvage the remainder of the television season by quickly revving up production to bring back some popular TV shows that have been languishing in repeats or were taken off the air.

"Everyone is motivated to get back to work as quickly as possible," said Jonathan Littman, president of Jerry Bruckheimer Television, which produces "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Amazing Race," among other shows, for CBS. "They want to begin producing as many original episodes as they can."

Movies that were derailed by the strike also could lurch back, including high-profile projects such as Columbia Pictures' "Da Vinci Code" prequel "Angels & Demons" and Warner Bros.' "Shantaram," starring Johnny Depp.

Films are blessed with long lead times, and last summer studio executives accelerated development and production schedules in anticipation of a strike. As a result, the movie industry was not as hard hit by the Nov. 5 work stoppage as broadcast TV.

Production shut down in December and January, after the supply of TV scripts had been depleted. That compromised the season, which officially ends May 21.

It will take four to six weeks and tens of millions of dollars to ramp up TV production in dozens of cavernous soundstages in Los Angeles, Burbank and New York, and not every prime-time series will immediately return to the air.

"It's not just flipping a switch and having everything come right back on," said Barry Jossen, executive vice president of production for ABC Studios. "There are a lot of factors and considerations that go into these decisions. We are trying to determine the amount of material that was finished before the strike started, the creative status of the show and the broadcast schedule needs."

Only about 10 to 20 prime-time network programs are likely to return this spring with fresh episodes, including some of TV's biggest hits, such as "Grey's Anatomy" on ABC and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" on CBS. Some viewers might not see new episodes of their favorites until fall -- at the earliest. Shows with complex plots, large casts and complicated production elements, such as NBC's "Heroes" and Fox's "24," are expected to roll over to next season.

Studio executives say they can't justify the increased costs of ramping up production for every program halted by the strike. It would cost the studios millions of dollars extra -- an average $200,000 more an episode, according to one estimate -- to produce an abbreviated run for each series. Crews must be rehired, sets need to be rebuilt, and the costs of production would be spread over a smaller number of episodes.

Some struggling shows might not be worth saving. Shelling out millions more for marketing campaigns to try to relaunch an iffy drama could spell sudden death for such programs as NBC's "Bionic Woman" and CBS' "Cane," industry executives predicted.

Television executives are vowing to use the disrupted TV season as an opportunity to do what they have talked about for years: change their decades-old rituals in an effort to contain costs in an era when audiences have declined and technologies such as the Internet and digital video recorders have changed the way people consume media.

"TV executives haven't been sitting around thumbing their fingers during the strike; they have been giving a lot of thought to how they run their business," Littman said. "We're seeing some industrial Darwinism as the business changes."

For decades, broadcast television has operated on a rigid schedule. In the fall, writers submit hundreds of scripts to the networks, which place orders for their top prospects in January and February; producers hire staffs and shoot pilot episodes from February through April in what's typically known as pilot season.

Networks are running out of time for a full-blown development season for next fall, which could give shows such as "Cashmere Mafia" on ABC and "Reaper" on the CW a new lease on life.

Networks plan to scale back the number of pilots they order this year. In recent years, as many as 120 comedy and drama pilots were produced for ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and the CW, all competing for the vacant slots on their prime-time schedules. Last year the networks ordered about 40 of the pilots to series.

"Broadcast networks can no longer spend tens of millions of dollars every year creating dozens of pilots that never see the light of day," NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker said.

Of all the pilots produced last year, only one, "Samantha Who?" on ABC, became a bona fide hit. That's a lousy batting average in an industry that can spend $8 million for an hourlong pilot.

TV executives hope to usher in year-round development and adopt more of a cable-TV programming schedule, where the focus is on ordering fewer shows and introducing them throughout the year.

Striking writers reach tentative deal with studios
By Steve Gorman and Dean Goodman
Sat Feb 9, 9:18 AM PST

The union representing Hollywood's striking writers said it reached a "tentative deal" with studios and will meet members later on Saturday to discuss ending a three-month walkout that has crippled television production and overshadowed the awards season.

The breakthrough was announced via e-mail to the 10,500 members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), who went on strike for the first time in almost 20 years on November 5 in a dispute centering on compensation for work distributed over the Internet.

"While this agreement is neither perfect nor perhaps all that we deserve for the countless hours of hard work and sacrifice, our strike has been a success," WGA West president Patric Verrone and WGA East president Michael Winship said in the memo.

Members will meet in New York at 2 p.m. EST and in Los Angeles at 10 p.m. EST to discuss specific terms, the ratification process and ending the strike, the union added.

The WGA memo said the tentative deal "creates formulas for revenue-based residuals in new media, provides access to deals and financial data to help us evaluate and enforce those formulas, and establishes the principle that, 'When they get paid, we get paid."'

Officials from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the bargaining arm of the studios, were not immediately available for comment.

The strike has thrown the U.S. television industry into turmoil, derailed several movie productions and idled thousands of entertainment workers, from actors and directors to hairstylists, set designers and clerks.

The Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. has estimated the strike has cost the region's film and TV industry at least $650 million in wages, with over $1 billion more in lost earnings attributed to the ripple effect on the local economy.

The strike also has overshadowed the entertainment industry's annual awards season, even threatening to spoil the Oscars show later this month. Last month's Golden Globes awards ceremony was canceled after the actors' union said it would refuse to cross the writers' picket line.

The last major strike to hit Hollywood, a walkout by screenwriters in 1988, lasted 22 weeks and delayed the start of that year's fall television season

CNN is reporting that the deal has been endorsed (unanimously)by union's governing body and the strike is for the best part done.

BREAKING NEWS: Writers Strike Is Officially Over!

Striking Hollywood writers are going back to work.

The Writers Guild of America said its members voted Tuesday to end their devastating, three-month strike that brought the entertainment industry to a standstill.

Writers will go back to work Wednesday after voting in Beverly Hills and New York.

"At the end of the day, everybody won. It was a fair deal and one that the companies can live with, and it recognizes the large contribution that writers have made to the industry," said Leslie Moonves, chief executive officer of CBS Corp.

Moonves was among the media executives who helped broker a deal after talks between the guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers collapsed in acrimony.

One winner in the vote was the Academy Awards, which can now be staged Feb. 24 without the threat of pickets or a boycott by actors that would have dulled the glamour of Hollywood's signature celebration.

The strike's end would allow many hit series to return this spring for what's left of the current season, airing anywhere from four to seven new episodes. Shows with marginal audience numbers may not return until fall or could be canceled.

"It will be all hands on deck for the writing staff," said Chris Mundy, co-executive producer of CBS' drama "Criminal Minds." He hopes to get a couple of scripts in the pipeline right away, with about seven episodes airing by the end of May.

The combined New York-Beverly Hills count was overwhelmingly in favor of ending the strike: 3,492 voted yes, with only 283 voting to stay off the job.

Writers did not vote on whether to formally accept the tentative contract that already has won approval from the union's board of directors.

The guild will mail contract ratification ballots to members over the next few days. Writers can also vote at meetings. All ballots must be cast by Feb. 25.

The union's board approved a deal Sunday giving writers a share of the growing revenue from programs offered on the internet and other new media.

Guild leaders say they were fighting for a piece of the future, reflecting the widespread belief that Internet-delivered entertainment fare would inevitably claim an increasing and perhaps even dominant market share.

The walkout stopped work on dozens of TV shows, disrupted movie production, and turned the usually star-studded Golden Globes show into a news conference.