The writers return...for Dave & Craig

It seems, in retrospect, not getting the Tonight Show was great for David Letterman. Kudos to him for negotiating a contract with CBS that gave his company, Worldwide Pants, ownership of The Late Show and Craig Ferguson's The Late, Late Show. That gave him the ability to negotiate an interim deal with the Writers Guild that allows his writers to return to action. On Friday, 12/28, 'Pants' reached that interim agreement with the Writers Guild and both shows will return on Wednesday with writers in fold. That agreement will be eventually be replaced by any future agreement reached by the writers and producers, but it immediately gives the CBS stable of late night shows a tremendous advantage over the likes of Leno, Conan and Kimmel in two major areas. Not only does it mean that both shows will be able to run with all the features that the writers are responsible for in tact, including Dave's Top Ten List and a monologue, but celebrities can appear as guests without crossing picket lines, which most won't do. "Tonight Dave welcomes Paul Neuman." "Tonight Jay welcomes the manager of the McDonald's on Rodeo Drive." Well, you get the idea. That alone will be a major hurdle for the other late night talkfests to contend with in addition to not having the luxury of monologue and bit writers. With no seeming end to the strike in sight this could give Dave and Craig a major advantage over the other shows for quite awhile. Maybe even long enough to establish major ratings increases. I am personally looking forward to more "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches" and "Will It Float". Good work Dave.

The Writers Strike is justified

This is a post I made to a forum questioning why the WGA would like to get reality show writers in their fold. I will try to give a little perspective to the union issue from personal experience. I worked at a country radio station in a group of radio stations (2) in the mid '90's. We were members of AFTRA (American Federation of Radio & Television Artists). For those of you who think the union people are overpaid, be it known I was making $7.60 an hour at the time, union minimum. When radio was deregulated and companies could start buying up a ton of stations instead of owning only 7 AM, 7FM total and only one of each in each city (market) our group began by buying our country competition. That meant that if we were fired, as talent, we had nowhere to go in town and there was no other country station to be offered a job from to create a competitive balance for talent. The group, at the time in negotiations with our union, hired 'tons' of part time talent for rates above union minimum & promised them the moon if they voted out the union. The union was dumped, the new hires got fired and from that point on pro union employees were fired or never got another raise. Well, 2 years later I did get a 1 cent per hour raise. Talk about predjudice... The new hires were fired and they reverted to hiring people for minimum wage. Illegal? Yes. Proveable? No. Moral of the story is the union wants all eligible writers (those who write for major networks and any other venue they cover) to have the same protection they have. That is why they want the reality writers in their fold. If not, they are subject to the same abuse we got when the union was voted out. The owners & suits have control and you have no bargaining power. That means, like Siegal & Schuster, who created Superman, have no rights or income from their creation from future films, tv, cartoons, reprints of the material they wrote or drew, or merchandising. They were paid a weekly (nominal) wage for their work and the company owns their creation(s) and benefits forever from any sales of that work, be it DVD, internet....any media, while the creators get nothing. That is not fair. Writers, on the surface, are paid well, but in tv & film they don't work much and that income has to last during the times when they are unemployed, which for the majority of writers, is most of the time.

Doctor Who and its place on US TV

This is a post I wrote for a similar topic on the Doctor Who forum at the SciFi channel. Unfortunately, even with the writers strike, I have to agree with most posters that Doctor Who will never see the light of day on a major network in the US. First, networks don't run imports these days because they spend too much on their own productions to pay the BBC, or whomever, the money for the rights to something they have no control over. However, Doctor Who could have been a much bigger hit on cable had it been promoted at all. For example, take Torchwood. BBC America promoted Torchwood tremendously. It became the biggest show in the history of the channel. If BBC America had the in home saturation/penetration that SciFi has (number of homes where it is available) it would have gotten 3 or 4 times the audience that it DID get. That would have put it among the top 10-15 cable shows, probably around 3-4 million viewers.SciFi doesn't even run promos of Who in their biggest show "Eureka". To their credit they did run Series 3 spots on BBC America (oh pinch me I must be dreaming). Had SciFi promoted Doctor Who with the same resolve that BBC America promoted Torchwood, considering their household availability and penetration (they ran promos for "TinMan" on NBC) Doctor Who, with it's built in PBS recognition factor, could have ranked among the highest cable shows. That, however would have meant that the BBC could have charged more for subsequent series of Doctor Who.If SciFi can get their 1M viewers for a bargain price with a British import and maintain a ratings quota , why make it a hit and have to pay more for it later or outbid another channel for the rights after it becomes a hit. It's all about money and spending less of it. Especially if it isn't a show they own a piece of.

I'm in A Larry King 'Fringe TV Show' Mood

I have been asked what a "Larry King TV Mood" is. Damn, at 55, 56 on Dec. 23, I already have had to explain to some readers that Paul McCartney was with a band before Wings. Has it really been so long since Larry King did his little weekly column for USA Today? It was only 2001 when it was dropped. Only about a decade. Oh......maybe I am AM old. Larry used to write a short column that had even shorter references to things he wanted to comment on. One line comments on many topics. Actually they were barely comments. Mostly, they were one line incomplete thoughts. I stole some of these actual excerpts from an article on Medsacape Today. The parenthesis are my comments. Wouldn't want you to think Larry was too wordy or talked to himself. "Sandy Koufax really likes egg cremes" (Does anyone but Sandy care? Or should they?) "Jimmy Breslin never told a lie -- ever" (Would his wife agree?) "Madonna, it is said, is fond of ficus" (of what???? A sacred FIG????) "Gary Cooper's right arm was 4 inches longer than his left arm" (No wonder he was picked to play Lou Gherig) "Last week, I shaved my feet" (Top or bottom Larry?) You get the idea. So my short little "mood" pieces are thoughts I don't really have sufficent time to devote for them to become blog entries of any real substance, but I wanted to mention these random thoughts I might, but probably won't, elaborate on someday. The red bold face type is all Larry would have said. I like to think my thoughts have a LITTLE more substance. So here we go!!!!!! Have you seen Food Networks' "Seasons Eatings" promos with their claymation type versions of their stable of stars? Most are fairly resemblent of their real life counterparts, but my little sweetie, Rachel Ray, needs to back hand them through next Sunday. Somehow she came out looking like Michael Jackson on ice skates. Have Oprah take a hit out on 'em for that girl! For years I wanted to grow up to be David Letterman, who by the way is Mr. Class for paying his non writer staff during the writer's strike, and being the FIRST of the Late Night Talk show brotherhood to do that. Way to go Dave! Now, I want to be Anthony Bourdain, or at least his buddy. We could be great friends. We are nearly clones anyway. On his Travel Channel show "No Reservations", he travels the world, smokes like a furnace, drinks like a fish and eats pork to excess. I do that too. However, due to lack of a tv budget I am forced to confine those activities to my backyard. I was shocked to find out that the Discovery Channel's "Cash Cab host, Ben Bailey, whose hair style I emulate, passes out 'stage money' to his winners and they have to wait till the network sends 'em a check. Damn I hate corporate broadcasting since deregulation. I do love the show & Ben is great. I also find it interesting how many people answer in the form of a question as if they were on Jeopardy. If you did that on Comedy Central's 'Win Ben Stein's Money' you would be penalised for that. Does anyone have a tougher job than Les Stroud on the Science Channel's 'Survivorman'? This guy survives with less stuff than MacGyver, in deserts, swamps, & the Arctic Circle for 7 days. No food, water & no camera crew. That's right, no crew. He carries around his own camera equipment & films it all himself. Even walking away from his camera. Then he comes back a mile or so just to get it. All he usually has with him is one match, 3 Fritos Corn Chips, a shoe string and a harmonica. What a pain. You are right Les! You're not paid enough for that shit, but it's great tv. Honorable mentions: Dinner Impossible on Food TV Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel Cash & Treasures on the Travel Channel High Stakes Poker on GSN, This season all players had to put up a $500,000 buyin, with their own money. That means some hands, so far, have been worth nearly $1,000,000 each. Who does Doyle Brunson's taxes? By the way, Torchwood, Series 2, will premiere on BBC America 1/26/08, about the same time it begins on the BBC across the pond. No word yet on Series 4 of Doctor Who in the states, featuring the return of Billie Piper as Rose Tyler. Since leaving the Doctor Who, where she won several Best Actress awards co-starring with both Christopher Eccleston & David Tennant, Billie is wowing brit audiences, in "The Secret Diary of a Call Girl" renewed for a second series on ITV, and she returns to the role of Sally Lockhart this Christmas as the BBC adapts a second Philip Pullman book "The Shadow in the North" for television. Her first, "The Ruby in the Smoke", was seen here on PBS's 'Masterpiece Theatre'. Britian's former pop princess, Billie Piper, has really shown she can act with all these diverse roles she has taken. She was even nominated for the prestigious Evening Standard theatre award for her first major stage role as best actress for her work in the Christopher Hampton play Treats.