skip to main |
skip to sidebar
"The Writers Guild of America abruptly scrapped a controversial event it had planned in New York next week targeting investors of CBS Corp., one of the media companies with which it is in contract talks.
The guild had invited dozens of Wall Street analysts to a one-hour presentation Tuesday on how the 3-month-old writers strike has negatively affected the television networks and CBS in particular.
The unusual event was part of a strategy to pressure conglomerates through their shareholders to reach a deal with writers. But it prompted an angry response from some executives whose studios are in talks with the writers.
As of early Wednesday, several analysts contacted by The Times said they were planning to attend the session. By late afternoon, however, guild leaders had decided to pull the plug, according to two people close to the matter. Guild officials declined to comment."
"With the writers' strike in its 86th day, the town's running out of patience -- despite hints of progress at informal meetings to lay the groundwork for official WGA negotiations to resume.
SAG muddied the picture Tuesday by blasting the DGA's two-week-old tentative deal, prompting an immediate rebuke of SAG's leaders by DGA president Michael Apted.
SAG's dismissal of the DGA deal may dash hopes that the directors pact would serve as a template for a WGA deal and get the scribes back to work in the next few weeks.
In a message to SAG members, prexy Alan Rosenberg and exec director Doug Allen amplified previous prounouncements that the DGA deal would not automatically be the model for a new SAG deal -- echoing what WGA leaders were saying before they launched the informal contract talks last week and began a news blackout.
"Some have rushed to anoint their deal as the 'solution' for the entertainment industry," Rosenberg and Allen said. "We believe that assessment is premature."
"The writers-strike takedown of the Golden Globes last week has those who participate in the $300 million-Oscar economy shaking in their red-soled Louboutins.
The continuing action by the Writers Guild of America helped scotch the always-bawdy Golden Globes ceremony broadcast on NBC, because the Globes producer, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, couldn't negotiate an interim deal with the striking scribes. That could end up costing the network some $10 million to $15 million if Golden Globes advertisers ask for cash back -- the event brought in some $27 million in revenue last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence."
"You are such wonderful Moonlight fans, I have no doubt that you are writing and calling CBS about our show. :) I just want to encourage you to keep up the good work! Moonlight has received some great news lately.... winning the People's Choice Award, Les Moonves saying it is "likely to return," being number one in our time slot this past Friday, etc. I know that Alex O'Loughlin's humble acceptance speech gained many new viewers! Even though wonderful things have happened for our show, we can not let our guard down. Please, continue to ask the network to renew Moonlight!"
"The ongoing writers strike is taking much of the glitz and glitter out of the TV schedule. NBC is offering some Golden Globes advertisers the option of getting cash back because the traditional broadcast has been scuttled, and could end up returning as much as $10 million to $15 million, according to people familiar with the situation."
"The future may not look so bright for Oscar after Hollywood's striking writers and their allies took aim at the Golden Globes, forcing the popular awards show to cancel the ceremony, in favor of a glorified news conference.
"It's definitely a bad omen for the Oscars," said Stuart Levine of Variety. It's the second big blow to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has been unable to persuade the union to let writers work for the broadcast."
Myles at Cultural Learnings has a post today on 10 shows to watch in 2008. You guessed it; today is Jericho.
The post is very well done and Myles didn't start out as a big Jericho fan.
"And they might have found their entrance into the minds of television viewers, as the Writers’ Strike has allowed Jericho to be emerging at a time when CBS will have little else on their schedule. By the time February 12th rolls around, CBS will be dipping into their corporate sibling Showtime for content, and a majority of their original programming will be gone. As a result, Jericho will be better able to capture the attention of the viewers it so desperately needs to survive.
However, I don’t think this is a story about survival or desperation - even if the series debuts to disappointing ratings, it won’t be enough to take away the real impact of this story. Whether the new episodes of Jericho garner ten million viewers or ten thousand, its return will signal a new era for television. In the creation of social networking sites like Hey! Nielsen, or in future campaigns and correspondence when a series is canceled, there is a new respect forming between the people who make television and the people that watch it.
But this obviously doesn’t extent to the networks, or the producers - the continuing Writer’s Strike is the reason for the (Hopefully) in the title of this event. Jericho fans, like so many others, have made it clear that it is not the studio heads who they thank for Jericho’s return - it is the people who created the show, the writers who made it possible and the people who brought the series to life. While we will all enjoy Jericho’s return in February, I also hope that it shall coincide with an end to this strike. Because, if not? Nuts to you, Producers."
"Now that's a Vulcan outrage.
A ticked-off Trekkie is suing Christie's and CBS Paramount for selling him more than $12,000 in allegedly phony memorabilia from "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
Ted Moustakis, who's been a "Trek" fan for nearly 40 years, contends the upscale auction house sold him knockoffs last year of a visor and a table touted as one-of-a-kind items from the hit television series."
"TV Guide's Michael Ausiello reports that VERONICA MARS creator Rob Thomas has considered continuing the cancelled series a comic book...but has been warned off the project by the WGA. Thomas says:
"I had a second meeting with DC comics. I heard that the [WGA] didn't want [TV writers penning TV-based] comic books during the strike as it would promote a network property. We're investigating whether there are similar hurdles for a defunct TV series like Veronica Mars. Naturally, I won't be writing it if the Guild doesn't want me to, but we're hoping that's not the case."
On Tuesday, December 11th, actors are encouraged to bring a friend to the line for "Bring An Actor Friend to the Line Day." SAG, standing in solidarity, is asking that everyone involved in the industry, unionized or not, come out to support their friends and co-workers. Bring An Actor to the Line Day will be held at all picket locations. Locations are normally announced the previous day, however normal locations, up until this point have been at Paramount Studios and Warner Brothers locations."
More info here.
"On the picket lines, striking television and film writers adamantly claim that studios are refusing to pay for the use of writers’ scripts on the Internet.
But Studios is doing just that. Over the next three months fans of the hit show “Lost” can go to ABC.com to view weekly episodes of “Lost: Missing Pieces,” a series of new two- to three-minute shorts that reveal background information and previously undisclosed details about the stranded inhabitants of the show’s mysterious island.
The “Missing Pieces” episodes were produced under an agreement with the writers’ union that provides for much of what the writers say the studios have been refusing to offer."
"Call it babycenter.com for old-timers. Instead of targeting new parents, Caring.com targets adults taking care of their elderly parents.
While it sounds like one of the odder website launches in recent years, to hear founder Andy Cohen talk about it, the venture makes a lot of business sense. According to him, there are 34 million adults in the U.S. providing care for someone 50 or older, and a third of those are long-distance caregivers.
As the expansive baby-boomer market ages, more media companies are going after it with sites focused on everything from Grandparents.com, which focuses on the relationships between people in the boomer segment on up and their grandchildren, to TeeBeeDee.com, a social-networking site for the 40-plus set."
**I have been blogging Jericho for 7 days a week since May.
It's time to take a break and I've chosen Sundays as my day off.
Thank you all for understanding. Be back Monday.
"The writers' strike would take an immediate toll on television viewers' favorite programs, dealing a setback to shows that are written day-to-day -- such as Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" -- as well as scripted programming already underway or about to go into production.
However, Jericho has written and filmed all seven episodes so we may be seeing it sooner than expected."
"As Hollywood braces for its television and film writers to go on strike as soon as Monday, more than 500 CBS News employees represented by the Writers Guild of America under a separate agreement with that network are contemplating their own job action.
The CBS television and radio staffers -- a group that includes news writers, editors, desk assistants, production assistants, graphic artists, promotion writers and researchers who work at a local or network level in New York, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles -- plan to vote Nov. 15 on authorizing a strike."
When you are making out your Christmas card list this year, please
include
the following:
A Recovering American soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue,NW
Washington,D.C. 20307-5001
"CBS' Risk Taking Tanks
Net's innovative scheduling yields lackluster demos"
"In an interview with Mediaweek, CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler acknowledged those disappointments. But she remains supportive of the new shows, even Laughlin. "It was the boldest risk that we took," she said of the music-drama hybrid. "The true failure would be to stop trying new things."
Although Kid Nation is drawing young viewers, it is not attracting coveted young adults. The show may be trending up in key demos, but its focus on children apparently offers few entry points for older viewers, especially those without young kids. "I can see how it's more of a challenge for adults to find a particular character to relate to," Tassler admitted.
Whatever makes air next season, Tassler said, an increasingly fractured media pie may demand that all broadcasters come up with new methods of measurement. Between online streaming and increased DVR penetration bleeding off live TV viewers, she added, "I think we really need to examine—and redefine—what is a good number."
"Being one of the Jericho "Nuts" (yep, CBS got mine, and who knew I ever had them?) this blog was originally intended to promote the Television Series "Jericho". I've cleaned up the Jericho Resource links for new and old fans alike. I'll be adding other TV sections as time goes on."
"Here’s our guide to how the strike might affect the average entertainment consumer this time around—though, even if there’s a last-minute settlement, don’t get too comfy. Contracts with the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild run out in June 2008."
According to Billboard.com Jericho: The First Season ranks as #14 on their TOP TV DVD SALES CHART.
"Rash Report: Why The Networks Really Should Avoid a Strike"
"The release of "C3" ratings (commercial ratings based on live viewing and DVR viewing up to three days later) grabbed the industry's headlines. While there are many ways to interpret the data, one transcendent trend remained clear: It's still all about the programming.
By and large, the most-recorded programs approximated the highest live ratings. The degree to which the networks perceive DVRs to be a problem misses what is the true threat to broadcast: irrelevancy or apathy, a human response that is much harder to address than skipping ads. So, as the fall season struggles with a sluggish start, it's a particularly precarious time for what should head next week's headlines -- a possible writers' strike."
Interesting article with a lot of details:
"A real TV writers’ strike could mean interesting drama in the advertising sales offices of broadcast networks — as if this ad market hasn’t been theatrical enough.
In theory, marketers could make networks redo all their upfront deals, says one media agency executive. Why? Because they paid for original network programming - not for reruns, or some half-baked reality shows, or some not-fleshed-out backburner scripted shows."
Nielsen Reverses Rule on Rebroadcast Ratings
"Nielsen is eliminating a new rule that was intended to help advertisers better track how many people watched a TV show and their ads no matter when they watched it. But outcry over the way NBC used the policy to report ratings for the season debut of its hit "Heroes" has scuttled the effort -- at least for now.
The ensuing brouhaha illustrates some of the troubles in measuring TV audiences who are able to use new technology to view programs in new and different ways. More viewers are using digital video recorders to watch their favorite programs hours or days after their original broadcast; downloading episodes from iTunes or Amazon; and watching streaming episodes of the programs online. Networks, recognizing that not all the fans of a show are able to watch it the night it originally airs, have begun to schedule encore episodes (often on Friday or Saturday nights) as a way to give more people a chance to see the episode. As this trend develops, the true total number of viewers of a particular episode comes not only from measuring a traditional TV audience."
"The debut of the CBS reality show “Survivor: China” delivered 15 million viewers on Sept. 20. In an indication of how important digital video recorder playback is becoming, it gained another 2.1 million DVR viewers within one week of the premiere.
DVR playback data for the first week of the fall television season will be released next week."
