cronincal

Late Night Breakthrough; Dave Cooks Up WGA Deal That NBC & ABC Won't Enjoy; CBS Reacts By Re-Pledging AMPTP Unity


UPDATED THROUGHOUT: Sources tell me the Writers Guild Of America is intending to grant David Letterman's independent production company Worldwide Pants an "interim agreement" that allows the Late Show host and his writers to return to the airwaves during the strike because it doesn't involve CBS.

This comes after Letterman's long-time executive producer Rob Burnett, who's also president/CEO of Dave's production company Worldwide Pants, has repeatedly tried to secure a WGA waiver for The Late Show. (See below for details of the bills Letterman has been paying since his show went off the air.)

This trumps NBC's announcement coming Monday that Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien will be returning by January 7th. Presumably, ABC's Jimmy Kimmel won't be far behind. "A major announcement will be made by more than one network on Monday," an insider noted. But Jay and Conan, who are just hired hands and not show owners like Dave, won't have their writers to rely on when they come back on the air. And Dave will. The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, also owned by WP, would return with writers.

Here's the statement from Rob Burnett:

Quote:

“Worldwide Pants has always been a writer-friendly company. Dave has been a member of the WGA for more than 30 years, and I have been a member for more than 20. Because we are an independent production company, we are able to pursue an interim agreement with the Guild without involving CBS in that pursuit. Therefore, since the beginning of the strike, we have expressed our willingness to sign an interim agreement with the Guild consistent with its positions in this dispute. We're happy that the Guild has now adopted an approach that might make this possible. It is our strong desire to be back on the air with our writers and we hope that will happen as soon as possible.”

This clearly is part of the WGA's new "divide and conquer" strategy (see my previous, WGA Starting Monday Will Say To Moguls: "Let's Make An Individual Deal". Though it's worked with Letterman, it'll be a much tougher sell with the Hollywood moguls.

2ND UPDATE: That's why Letterman's network CBS felt the need today to disassociate itself from his pending WGA deal today, obviously worried that Les Moonves' AMPTP colleagues will be miffed. CBS issued this statement this afternoon:

Quote:

Regarding David Letterman's company, Worldwide Pants, seeking an interim agreement with the WGA: We respect the intent of Worldwide Pants to serve the interests of its independent production company and its employees by seeking this interim agreement with the WGA. However, this development should not confuse the fact that CBS remains unified with the AMPTP, and committed to working with the member companies to reach a fair and reasonable agreement with the WGA that positions everyone in our industry for success in a rapidly changing marketplace."

At present, the other late night hosts -- Jay, Conan, and Jimmy (paid the least of all and csaid to be close to bankruptcy) are paying for staff to one degree or another out of their own pockets, presumably.
But Letterman isn't just doling out $300,000 a week in salary for the non-writing staff of two shows, his and The Late Late Show starring Craig Ferguson which Worldwide Pants also owns. Dave also pays for the rent of the Ed Sullivan Theatre Building in NYC and insurance for 200+ workers, I'm told. "So, triple that figure and you'll be close to what he's been shelling out a week for six weeks," a source says. "I'm tired of everyone being lumped together for taking roughly the same out-of-pocket hit. It's not close."

I've learned that Worldwide Pants approached the Writers Guild early before the strike and tried to get a waiver and stay on the air. The company's argument was that it's a small production company that supports the WGA And that whatever deal the guild negotiated, Worldwide pants would adhere to. At first, I'm told, the guild thought making side deals might weaken its bargaining position. But now that the labor action is dragging on seven weeks without an end in sight, the guild has rethought its position in an attempt to induce individual studios and networks to cut separate deals with the WGA.

UPDATE: I've been trying to reach Letterman head writers Justin and Eric Stangel (they're brothers and share that title) for comment. But Late Show staff writer and strike captain Bill Scheft (photo right) just told me he knew nothing about Letterman's attempt to obtain the WGA waiver. "I got the update letter today from the WGA about separate deals and then thought, 'If we were smart, we'd be first on that line,' he said. "They should give Dave the waiver just for singlehandedly keeping six shows off the air for two months and choking off a revenue stream the networks had counted on."
I asked Scheft how he feels knowing there's even a possibility he could return to work in a matter of days, not months. "Nikki, you have no idea. Very emotional just to think about it. Every single day on the picket line, every day, people from the staff come and visit us. My goal is always to get through the visit without sobbing. A goal not always reached."
In an earlier email exchange, Scheft told me, the WGA "can thank Dave for the other guys staying off and paying their staffs, in my opinion. You have to wonder if they can wield more influence as on-camera advocates for the cause. As I have said since the beginning, Dave Letterman on the air without writers, pissed off he has no writers, railing nightly against network weasels and haircuts, is the greatest ally writers can have. And he will reach a much wider audience about the strike than we have been able to so far."

bigbrowndog

GO DAVE! let her rip!

__________________
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...antasleigh.jpg help people eat for Christmas http://www.freerice.com/index.php

djack

He always does. He refers to anyone in management as weasel at best.

__________________

cronincal

December 17, 2007
Leno and O’Brien Shows to Resume
By BILL CARTER

NBC officially announced today that its two late-night stars, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien, will return to the air on Jan. 2 even if the strike against networks and studios by entertainment writers is not resolved by then.

The two hosts would be forced to perform without writers, and might have to face opposition from the Writers Guild, which has thus far urged the late-night hosts to support the strike by staying off the air. However, the tone of that opposition has softened in recent weeks after the hosts began paying the salaries of the nonwriting staff members of their shows.

CBS’s late night star, David Letterman, is pursuing an interim agreement with writers that would allow him to return on Jan. 2 with his writers. Mr. Letterman is positioned to make such a deal because his production company, WorldWide Pants, owns both his show and the one that follows on CBS, which has as its host Craig Ferguson.

This weekend Mr. Letterman’s representatives said they had been negotiating with the guild for that interim agreement and were hopeful they would be successful, but the deal was not yet settled and at least one representative of a late-night show said the some members of the guild leadership might have concerns about making a separate arrangement with Mr. Letterman.

Other late-night hosts, including Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on the Comedy Central channel and Jimmy Kimmel on ABC have not yet announced their plans. However, it is expected they all will return some time in early January, even without writers.

The Jan. 2 date would put the amount of time the NBC hosts stayed off the air in support of the strike at about two months. In the previous writers strike in 1988, Johnny Carson, the legendary host of the “Tonight” show, came back onto the air without writers after staying out two months.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times

cronincal

Letterman's Company to Meet With Writers
December 20, 2007 11:29 AM EST |

NEW YORK — Leaders of striking television writers plan to meet Friday with David Letterman's production company in an attempt to reach a separate deal that could make the "Late Show" the only late-night TV program on the air with a writing staff.

The union's announcement last week that it would negotiate separately with production companies was seen as an indication that writers would work out something with Worldwide Pants, the Letterman-owned company that produces his show and Craig Ferguson's CBS talker.

It hasn't worked out that way, a sign that some in the Writer's Guild may be having second thoughts. Meanwhile, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel have all said they would resume their programs on Jan. 2 without their writing staffs.

Letterman is also aiming for a Jan. 2 return.

"With the WGA now embracing a strategy of offering interim agreements to individual companies, it is inconceivable to us that there is any producing entity more deserving than Worldwide Pants, which has been and continues to be a staunch supporter of the Writer's Guild and its positions," said Rob Burnett, the company's president, in a statement announcing Friday's meeting.

cronincal

a real coup for letterman, here.

Unlike rivals, Letterman has his writers
By FRAZIER MOORE, AP Television Writer
Sat Dec 29, 12:59 AM ET

After eight weeks of reruns, David Letterman should be in a joking mood next Wednesday: Not only does he join his late-night brethren back on the air, but he'll have his writers backing him up.

So Dave was the last to announce his return. Big deal — now the joke's on Jay, Conan and the other writer-less hosts.

An interim agreement with the Writers Guild of America will allow the full writing staffs for "Late Show with David Letterman" as well as "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" to return to work, even as the Hollywood writers strike continues to shutter much TV and movie production.

It could prove to be a huge advantage for both these CBS late-night shows, which are produced by the Letterman-owned Worldwide Pants.
"I am grateful to the WGA for granting us this agreement," Letterman said in a statement Friday. "This is not a solution to the strike, which unfortunately continues to disrupt the lives of thousands. But I hope it will be seen as a step in the right direction."

NBC's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" as well as ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" had already announced they would resume Wednesday without benefit of their writing teams. (Letterman goes head-to-head against Leno, as well as the first half-hour of Kimmel's show.)

Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert" planned to return writer-less on Monday, Jan. 7.

Resisting such an arrangement, Rob Burnett, president and CEO of Worldwide Pants, had actively sought an interim deal. The guild has been discussing agreements with several small independent producers since talks between producers and the union broke down Dec. 7.

"We immediately said we were interested," Burnett said Friday evening in a telephone interview.

Guild leaders said in a letter to membership Friday that Worldwide Pants accepted "the very same proposals that the guild was prepared to present to the media conglomerates when they walked out of negotiations on December 7."

"We had no problems with the guild's demands," Burnett said.

Now, the task for "Late Show" is "revving up the machine," he said. "We'll be ready Wednesday, even if it takes a few more days after that to get up to speed."

Much speculation has been focused on how the other late-night shows will fill their time deprived of monologues, skits and other prepared material. All the hosts — with the exception of NBC's Carson Daly, who returned to the air Dec. 3 — are members of the guild, making those without an interim deal subject to union rules that would severely limit what they can do.

Meanwhile, doubts have been raised about whether their shows will face a problem booking A-list guests, who may not be willing to cross a picket line.

Central to the contract dispute has been compensation for work distributed via the Internet and other digital media. The guild also has called for unionization of writers working on reality shows and animation.

When writers went on strike in 1988, only two late-night shows were affected: Johnny Carson's "Tonight" show and Letterman's "Late Night," both on NBC. Carson made a deal with the guild shortly after returning to the air, but Letterman went weeks without his writers' services before the strike was settled.

This time, it will be funny business as usual.

http://www.cbs.com

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press

Sean

My Tigers have a big game that night so I'm not tuning into any of those other shows anyway.

cronincal

i have the bayou bengals winning that game in my bowl picks pool.

cronincal

Dave Dumps Trump For Robin; Jay Says "Huck You!" By Booking Mike

UPDATED: David Letterman's Late Show writers go back to work tomorrow. An insider tells me, "Believe me, we understand this is the beginning of a real opportunity to call attention to what has had almost no television coverage in the last two months. So, it's pretty simple. Get the message out, be hysterically funny in the execution, and in so doing, embarrass the AMPTP into full capitulation no later than January 7th. Okay, the 8th."
Previous: There's no doubt now that the writers strike will be Topic A when David Letterman returns to The Late Show. Not just because his writers will be with him. ("You better believe we're going to bring attention to the strike as long as it lasts," Justin Stangel, head writer along with his brother Eric, said on LateShowWritersOnStrike.com which will continue.) But because Robin Williams will be the first guest. I, for one, can't wait to see the film comedian spoof the Hollywood moguls. Thursday will spotlight comedian Bill Maher, who'll also dump on the Big Media CEOs, I bet. Donald Trump, who'd been previously booked, has now been relegated to Friday's Late Show. Also, Howard Stern has repeatedly said that he would be one of Dave's first guests when Letterman went back to work.
Mike Huckabee will be Leno's first guest on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, even though the GOP presidential frontrunner is the only Republican in the race courting union endorsements. This summer, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers backed Huckabee because the former governor of Arkansas was the only Republican to address the labor group at its national conference. The union praised Huckabee for "trying to figure out where and how we might work together." Yet here he is eager to cross the WGA's picket line, which will be beefed up outside NBC tomorrow by striking writers. Anyway, it's likely that bookings on both shows will change day to day as more guests become available, and unavailable, during the strike.

cronincal

p.s. hillary clinton will do a cameo on the letterman show tonight