Not since the Helen Kushnick debacle 15 years ago when his manager crashed and burned as The Tonight Show's exec producer has Jay Leno taken such a terrible PR wallop as he did today. Today's Drudge headline, misleadingly, says "Leno fires staff" when what happened is that about 120 of the show's non-writing staffers today were laid off by NBC due to Leno's refusal along with the rest of the Top 5 late night hosts to cross WGA picket lines (since they're all guild members and supporting the writers). And everyone knows Jay was treated horribly by NBC which ordered him to leave in 2009 to make way for Conan -- the result of yet another shake-up orchestrated by Jeff Zucker in a brutal way. Problem is, Leno looks like a shit for lotsa other reasons.
The worst is that news reports trumpeted that, just a couple of days after the WGA strike began November 5th, he assured staffers they didn't have to worry because their paychecks would be safe. So I was told many of the laid-off employees left NBC's Burbank offices this morning in a sea of tears and expressing a sense of betrayal and wondering aloud "Where's Jay?" (Along with some vocal muttering about the big bucks he spends on his famous car collection...) True, Jay's Big Dog Productions only co-produces The Tonight Show whereas David Letterman's Worldwide Pants owns The Late Show and The Late Late Show and is paying production staff. But today Conan O'Brien, whose company Conaco also doesn't own Late Night, began picking up the tab for his show's 80 employees which sure puts Leno in an awkward position since he hasn't. Especially since it's so well known that Jay lives off his outside gigs and banks his Tonight Show salary.
It's one thing to be angry at NBC and not want to help the network, yet quite another to not financially help The Tonight Show employees who helped make him No. 1 in the ratings pre-strike. Instead of doing it himself, Leno had his assistant notify the staff yesterday that they would get their Christmas bonus early. Well, big fucking deal. (One news report said the bonus is only $100 for each year worked.) I, for one, don't understand why right now Leno isn't front and center or making a statement or otherwise protecting his public image -- especially if he exits NBC to jump-start Fox's late night talk in 2009.
CAST: Amy Ryan, Patricia Clarkson
CREATIVE TEAM: George Hickenlooper, Alan Sereboff, Kamala Lopez, Jill Kushner
MUSIC: Anthony Marinelli
TECHNICAL TEAM: Joel Marshall, Justin Shumaker, Clint Bennett
This is the 16th of the Writers Guild Of America member-conceived Internet videos for Project "Speechless" featuring A-list Screen Actors Guild talent. For the first time in the TV and movie industry, high-profile SAG actors are together taking their talents directly and exclusively to the Internet, the very medium which is at the center of the current WGA labor strike against the Alliance Of Motion Picture & Television Producers. The project, conceived by director/writer George Hickenlooper and writer Alan Sereboff, made its exclusive weekend debut here on my Deadline Hollywood Daily with 11 videos. The "Speechless" campaign now debuts on its new site, SpeechlessWithoutWriters.com, which will be adding new videos every day in both high-res and low-res versions.
By Nikki Finke | Category: | Friday November 30, 2007 @ 6:54pm
This is guaranteed to make Hollywood hate Ben even more without Silverman even shooting off his mouth in the press yet again. How nice for him that Shine, the UK indie owned and run by Elisabeth Murdoch, will snag his production company for something like $200 million. Ironic that a Murdoch winds up solving NBC's conflict of interest problem, eh? (See my previous, Don't Sweep This Under The Rug, NBC.)
By the way, unlike Rupert's idiot sons in the media biz Lachlan and James, Rupert Murdoch's second oldest kid, Elisabeth, is one smart cookie (but she's only third in the line of succession). She kept telling Fox executives that Simon Fuller's 2001 British monster hit Pop Idol would do just as well in America. But Sandy Grushow and Gail Berman shrugged her off. Finally, it took Elisabeth's nagging Daddy, and a direct order from Rupert himself, to get American Idol launched. Only after it scored a huge audience did the Fox execs claim they made sure the UK import was "properly Americanized" so as to take credit.
THURSDAY PM UPDATE: I'm told WGA negotiators are still waiting for the other "half" of the AMPTP's Day #4 new proposals (the half that presumably contains the missing terms on ESTs, electronic sell-throughs?) which agent Bryan Lourd said should be in their hands by Tuesday if not before. Then the writers will make a counter-offer to producers on Tuesday. Here's the WGA West and East email to members critical of today's New Media offers by the AMPTP on streaming, content made for new media, and programming delivered over digital broadcast channels:
To Our Fellow Members,
After four days of bargaining with the AMPTP, we are writing to let you know that, though we are still at the table, the press blackout has been lifted.
Our inability to communicate with our members has left a vacuum of information that has been filled with rumors, both well intentioned and deceptive.
Among the rumors was the assertion that the AMPTP had a groundbreaking proposal that would make this negotiation a "done deal." In fact, for the first three days of this week, the companies presented in essence their November 4 package with not an iota of movement on any of the issues that matter to writers.
Thursday morning, the first new proposal was finally presented to us. It dealt only with streaming and made-for-Internet jurisdiction, and it amounts to a massive rollback.
For streaming television episodes, the companies proposed a residual structure of a single fixed payment of less than $250 for a year's reuse of an hour-long program (compared to over $20,000 payable for a network rerun). For theatrical product they are offering no residuals whatsoever for streaming.
For made-for-Internet material, they offered minimums that would allow a studio to produce up to a 15 minute episode of network-derived web content for a script fee of $1,300. They continued to refuse to grant jurisdiction over original content for the Internet.
In their new proposal, they made absolutely no move on the download formula (which they propose to pay at the DVD rate), and continue to assert that they can deem any reuse "promotional," and pay no residual (even if they replay the entire film or TV episode and even if they make money).
The AMPTP says it will have additional proposals to make but, as of Thursday evening, they have not been presented to us. We are scheduled to meet with them again on Tuesday.
In the meantime, we felt it was essential to update you accurately on where
(Keep refreshing for the latest...) I was told last night by a top Hollywood CEO that the moguls had decided to allow AMPTP to put on the negotiating table a sweetened deal at Talks Day #4 today. "The producers are trying to put something on the table tomorrow [Thursday] that will jaw this loose. It will include streaming and EST [electronic sell-through] and all the rest," the source said specifically.
The problem is I can't confirm yet that the AMPTP has indeed bettered its offer today. (For a full report on the talks so far see my Day #3, Day#2, and Day #1.) But this is the sweetened proposal everyone has been talking about since before this new round of talks resumed. The really key issue is a better formula for ESTs, something that back on Sunday November 4th, the WGA negotiators had been led to believe was coming during that session so they dropped their DVD residual demands. Only to put them back on the table when the ESTs proposal never happened.
Until now, "the producers have not moved one inch on ESTs. It's never been addressed," the mogul I talked to confirmed last night.
On the TV issue of streaming, I'm told that the moguls' initial 9-month waiting period will be shrunk to 6 weeks. True, that's not the 3 days that the WGA is seeking, but it smacks of a compromise. (At least it's not entirely the "when we stop making money we'll give you money" thinking that's been driving the WGA so nuts.) Now, some WGA toppers are telling me this is exactly what the moguls were proposing back on November 4th. But others say the streaming proposal that Sunday was so un-fleshed out that they didn't know what the window being offered was. I do know that at the time I was reporting those tick-tock negotiations, the AMPTP side told me their streaming proposal was for the first season of a TV series to be free, and then at the start of the second season the writers would start receiving residuals for the first season, etc. Six weeks sounds a lot better than that.
But the CEOs are still standing firm on the issue of not sharing ad revenue with the writers even though those streaming shows are embedded with commmercials because "we don't even give that to Dick Wolf on broadcast."
I just learned that Conan O'Brien has made arrangements to pay his staff who will be laid off by NBC as of Friday. About 80 production people -- like talent bookers, producers, production assistants -- will be taken care of by the Late Night host who is supposed to move to The Tonight Show in 2009. Sources tell me this is on a week-to-week basis for the moment until or if Conan, who's a WGA member and got his start as a comedy writer, goes back to work. Obviously, NBC is dying for him to return to the air because its late night ratings for the repeats have tanked. None of the late night shows have been in production during the entire November sweeps and the networks have to give sponsors free spots or “give backs” at a cost of millions.
I'll say this: it's a great PR move by O'Brien as well as an incredibly nice thing to do. After all, he's the least paid of the Big Three (including Letterman and Leno), and unlike Dave's Worldwide Pants, which is generously paying its employees through at least the end of the year, Conan's company Conaco doesn't own Late Night. NBC does.
And while I'm on the topic of NBC's late night hosts, I'm told that Carson Daly was probably going to lose his show if he didn't return to work. Oh, like that would have been a great loss to humanity, much less television. It's incredible the lousy publicity which Daly's decision to cross the picket line is creating. After the news broke that Carson was soliciting scab jokes, several websites (here and here are two of them) have sprung up soliciting jokes about Daly, the nastier the better. Meanwhile, where do things stand with Jay Leno who had been a ubiquitous figure handing out food to the WGA picketers? There are no plans at the present for him to pay his show's production people who will be laid off by NBC as of Friday. As for returning to work, "I don't see him running to cross the line. I get that," an insider tells me. That's because Leno is still really furious at Jeff Zucker for handing over The Tonight Show to Conan and ... Read More »
There's little more to say about Wednesday's talks other than that, unfortunately. "This is not heading in the right direction," a mogul quoted his labor exec as saying to him yesterday. Another source told me, "It's stalemated. Nothing's getting achieved."
I'm not sure people are aware that CAA partner Bryan Lourd all week has been at the hotel where the talks are being held. He's working both sides in a form of "footstep diplomacy" (as opposed to Henry Kissinger's old "shuttle diplomacy"). An insider told me, "He keeps asking what everybody needs. This is what Lew Wasserman used to do during these things. Wasserman would say, 'I want to know what you each need. I don't want to know what you want. Go in the other room and tell me what you need.' "
As I've reported previously, Lourd was designated as the Hollywood agencies' point person to assist these resumed negotiations, which I should stress do not have a stop date on them at the moment and will probably continue well past Thursday. Said an insider: "There's no arbitrary end to this. Everyone only leaves if Bryan gives up and goes home." (And shame on journalist Alex Ben Block for writing a piece on Lourd containing nothing new yet not crediting me for all my scoops about Lourd's and all the agents' role.)
There's another "Gay Gate" picketing event organized by members of the WGA West's Gay & Lesbian Writers Committee for gay and lesbian writers, talent, and other supporters today at NBC Studios in Burbank (at the Alameda Gate) from 10 AM to 1 PM.
With the assistance of Christina Applegate, Samantha Who? writer Bob Kushell made this video to help the scribes survive their wedded bliss during the WGA strike.
I'm told the AMPTP's so-called PR council formed by corporate communications execs at the studios and networks really want to make their own clever YouTube videos to compete with the ones up and running by striking WGA members. No greenlights yet. Until then, here's a wry WGA-member written video entitled "Harsh Words" -- a riff on the actors-scribes "Speechless" campaign -- purporting to state a very unofficial AMPTP position. (It's a fake AMPTP video, guys, not a real one.)
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Not since the Helen Kushnick debacle 15 years ago when his manager crashed and burned as The Tonight Show's exec producer has Jay Leno taken such a terrible PR wallop as he did today. Today's Drudge headline, misleadingly, says "Leno fires staff" when what happened is that about 120 of the show's non-writing staffers today were laid off by NBC due to Leno's refusal along with the rest of the Top 5 late night hosts to cross WGA picket lines (since they're all guild members and supporting the writers). And everyone knows Jay was treated horribly by NBC which ordered him to leave in 2009 to make way for Conan -- the result of yet another shake-up orchestrated by Jeff Zucker in a brutal way. Problem is, Leno looks like a shit for lotsa other reasons.
So I was told many of the laid-off employees left NBC's Burbank offices this morning in a sea of tears and expressing a sense of betrayal and wondering aloud "Where's Jay?" (Along with some vocal muttering about the big bucks he spends on his famous car collection...) True, Jay's Big Dog Productions only co-produces The Tonight Show whereas David Letterman's Worldwide Pants owns The Late Show and The Late Late Show and is paying production staff. But today Conan O'Brien, whose company Conaco also doesn't own Late Night, began picking up the tab for his show's 80 employees which sure puts Leno in an awkward position since he hasn't. Especially since it's so well known that Jay lives off his outside gigs and banks his Tonight Show salary.
On the TV issue of streaming, I'm told that the moguls' initial 9-month waiting period will be shrunk to 6 weeks. True, that's not the 3 days that the WGA is seeking, but it smacks of a compromise. (At least it's not entirely the "when we stop making money we'll give you money" thinking that's been driving the WGA so nuts.) Now, some WGA toppers are telling me this is exactly what the moguls were proposing back on November 4th. But others say the streaming proposal that Sunday was so un-fleshed out that they didn't know what the window being offered was. I do know that at the time I was reporting those tick-tock negotiations, the AMPTP side told me their streaming proposal was for the first season of a TV series to be free, and then at the start of the second season the writers would start receiving residuals for the first season, etc. Six weeks sounds a lot better than that.
I just learned that Conan O'Brien has made arrangements to pay his staff who will be laid off by NBC as of Friday. About 80 production people -- like talent bookers, producers, production assistants -- will be taken care of by the Late Night host who is supposed to move to The Tonight Show in 2009. Sources tell me this is on a week-to-week basis for the moment until or if Conan, who's a WGA member and got his start as a comedy writer, goes back to work. Obviously, NBC is dying for him to return to the air because its late night ratings for the repeats have tanked. None of the late night shows have been in production during the entire November sweeps and the networks have to give sponsors free spots or “give backs” at a cost of millions.
Meanwhile, where do things stand with Jay Leno who had been a ubiquitous figure handing out food to the WGA picketers? There are no plans at the present for him to pay his show's production people who will be laid off by NBC as of Friday. As for returning to work, "I don't see him running to cross the line. I get that," an insider tells me. That's because Leno is still really furious at Jeff Zucker for handing over The Tonight Show to Conan and ... 
I'm not sure people are aware that CAA partner Bryan Lourd all week has been at the hotel where the talks are being held. He's working both sides in a form of "footstep diplomacy" (as opposed to Henry Kissinger's old "shuttle diplomacy"). An insider told me, "He keeps asking what everybody needs. This is what Lew Wasserman used to do during these things. Wasserman would say, 'I want to know what you each need. I don't want to know what you want. Go in the other room and tell me what you need.' "
communications execs at the studios and networks really want to make their own clever YouTube videos to compete with the ones up and running by striking WGA members. No greenlights yet. Until then, here's a wry WGA-member written 
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