The WGA and AMPTP have finally agreed to renew discussions after about five weeks of silence. Part of the return is the WGA to take attempts to expand their reach into reality and cartoon writers. Those groups are not covered by the guild and apparently will remain so. Even more amazing is both groups agreed to not make public discussions about the talks until concluded. You think they might actually be serious this time?
In a related note, NBC chief Jeff Zucker announced that NBC will no longer pay for pilot episodes, citing the recession and the last 3-4 years of poor financial performance. The network and others under Universal have been making cost cutting measures over the last few years by increasing reality show orders, cutting programs (including my much loved Stargate SG-1) and decreasing staff. The move makes sense as often the networks will like a script, order and pay for a pilot, and then decide whether or not to place a series order. So all those pilots that they didn't use, its just wasted money. Nevermind that often the pilot isn't the shows best effort as it takes the writers and actors a little while to find their sea legs. Whether this will lead to better programming though is anyone's guess. My fear is it will lead to "safer" programming as the other networks join the bandwagon.
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