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I'm hearing that 4 agents got the ax today -- Glenn Bickel, Tracey Murray and Catherine Stellin in CAA's TV lit department, as well as TV talent agent Steve Tellez.
CAA Bloodbath: Now In TV Department
By Nikki Finke | Category: Agents | Tuesday March 3, 2009 @ 7:04pm PST
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Were these agents just not covering their own overhead or what?
Please say it isn’t so about Steve Tellez. He’s one of the truly good guys and the only person I liked at that whole agency. The good thing is he will have multiple offers within days.
I hope they didn’t valet their cars!
Tellez and Glenn are shockers. They’ll surface somewhere else — wonder who they’re bringing with them?
Who the fuck are they?
Two of the four fired were women and yet women don’t make up nearly fifty percent of all CAA agents. The disproportial firings of women in an economic downturn is real.
What goes around, comes around…Cliché, but true.
Wow, shocked to hear Glenn Bickel got the ax.
I know about two of these guys, Glen Bickle and Steve Tellez. They are good, intelligent, kind men and I agree, their clients will go with them. Looks like CAA – the death star – is trying to purge any last vesitages of humanity. It will come back around on them.
No one can afford them. They have been such big players with BIG salaries for so long.
Tough time for these big names to make demands at another agency. Most of their clients are under contract for months and years to come. So commissions will be tough to collect considering those agency papers back at CAA.
Anonymous,
That may be true for MOST CAA agents but not Glenn Bickel or Steve Tellez. I’m not crying over Tracey Murray but don’t wish her ill will either. These three are genuinely okay people and better than most of their CAA counterparts. They’ll be fine in whatever they do next, they are liked by many.
I remember Steve Tellez from back at APA. Great guy. APA would be lucky to have him back.
Maybe NOW CAA will begin to realize that it’s not an agencies star roster that makes it the most powerful. Maybe it did in the 90’s.
When Endeavor and WMA pair up these layoffs will look miniscule in size compared to what CAA’s got coming to them.
And Gender Studies, take your bullshit elsewhere. You’re on the wrong board.
This is officially a depression not a recession…hopefully these people never wronged any of you personally, if so, let’s hear it, but if not, its just a fucking bummer. Tellez is a good agent, and I worked with Murray years ago…good agent, great lady. I hope everyone lands on their feet…
Tellez is a nice guy. Murray is nuts.
I know Tracey and Glenn well, and both are smart, kind, and deserve better. It’s clear most of the people on this board don’t actually know the people they snark about. These two are good ones, and will land on their feet.
I must agree with nyguy. Steve Tellez is a great guy and I’m sorry he’s been caught up in the economic pinch. But he’ll land on his feet somewhere else soon enough.
BTW, he’s a great guitar player, too.
Steve and Glenn are great guys, I truly enjoyed working with and around them when I was an assistant there a few years back…Good luck guys!
CAA has a TV lit dept?
Steve was a great guy…CAA will miss him.
Two of the four fired were women and yet women don’t make up nearly fifty percent of all CAA agents. The disproportial firings of women in an economic downturn is real.
Yes, except for the fact that every report released on the current recession shows that more men are losing their jobs than women, and that before the economy turns around women will actually outnumber men in the workplace.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
Or, to put it a simpler way, you = FAIL.
CAA just reaping what they sow.
Dumbasses.
Yes, women do bear a disproportionate number of the layoffs. Unfortunately, as I have found all too true, if a woman complains about it (”bitches”) she will hurt her ability to get hired in this man’s culture of Hollywood…
Glenn! Grab that old CAA card table and set up shop! Doesn’t matter where! I have a project for you!
is this a sign that CAA is really hurting or are they using the recession to shed some dead weight? if the latter is the case, there are certainly a lot junior agents (with almost no clients of their own) floating around that place… why let the agents who actually bring revenue to CAA go? someone explain this to me…
Just chiming in on more love for Steve Tellez. A class act amid the assholes. Hope he moves on to bigger and better.
I know three of the CAA agents let go; I can understand the others, but not Tracey. Very strange. What is CAA doing???
A somebody who has worked with Steve Tellez both as a client of the agency and as a buyer, I can tell you that he is one of the best agents around — smart, honest, tireless.
The studies say more men are losing their jobs because the industries hardest hit are male based. I would say it’s because men make more money, therefore they are the first to go. Women are cheaper to keep around.
Sad but true. (I’m a woman)
To Helenofpeel.
The women of WMA know this very well. They are all suffering greatly.
More layoffs may be presently happening to men, but that is because men have the good jobs to begin with. The jobs women have are largely part-time, and/or lesser paying jobs with no health care, pension etc. Moreover, the gender pay gap continues with women making 78-80 cents less on the dollar. And, women remain responsible for all the domestic responsibilities and childcare as well as working. Per NY Times, unemployed men spend their time watching tv and sleeping, letting their partners do all the work. Why would any woman ever ever ever want to get married. Women, please demand your equal share.
The ignorant haters can twist the facts all they want, but the bottom line is the bottom line.
Women need to start their own studio and agency. Men have made a pathetic mess of this biz, and of the economy at large. There are never any movies/tv to watch anyway because it’s all dumb male dominated crap. Even late night talk shows are unwatchable and tapped out with the endless parade of dull guys in suits. Women are the majority and make the majority household economic decisions. It is a built in demo and wildly powerful and incredibly under serviced.
Well, this confirms, as a Jr. Agent from a boutique agency who was recently shown the door, I stand no chance…
Thank God I still have my collection of ties. I finally will get to utilize my merit badge in knot tying — fashioning a noose.
Del Coro:
I was using this information.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-edward-m-kennedy-/recession-takes-a-toll-on_b_98184.html
Also, it may not be true of the whole country but it is definitely true of Hollywood. When ICM merged with Broder, the agents let go were proportionately female.
Therefore, please note YOU = EPIC FAIL
C’mon Steve Tellez?!
He was the last guy to point at and say “CAA hasn’t completly lost their soul”. He had way more value than they understood. With so many people rooting for them to fail they should take a great agent like Steve and make him a poster child not let him go.
If they were bringing in money, they wouldn’t be gone, right? Who are their clients?
How long before the TV lit folks land at ICM? ICM makes no bones about wanting to dominate in writers and writer-directors and CAA just let go some solid talent.
Well, I guess Bickel was expendable since they’ve moved to the Death Star. When I met him 18 or 19 years ago, tongue implanted firmly in cheek, he said, “I’m just a TV agent. All I did was build this building.”
I’m sure he can build another one.
Actually, CAA has a lot more humanity than you give them credit for. If you walk around that place for the most part, all the agents smile and say hello, especially the partners. They are a class act.
I am not an agent or do I want to be – but what kind of money / overhead was this group likely costing CAA?
Everyone keeps saying how nice these people are. Who cares? The only important thing is whether they’re getting their clients work and thus keeping the lights on at the agency. Being sweet and cuddly doesn’t mean shit in the real world. This isn’t high school anymore in case you hadn’t realized.
These are difficult posts to read, Nikki. Television is about relationships over many years and both Glenn Bickel and Steve Tellez are really excellent people and this is sad news. We’re in a very difficult economic time and but for the grace of god go many of us to work each day.
“sony cuts 300″…..”caa bloodbath cuts 4″…your bias against caa is so corrupt in everything you write…whatsa matter they dont suck up to you enough…..its a shonda
“Stupid is as Stupid does…”
Big ups to Catherine Stellin!
And Jr Agent from a small shop – nobody else may have noticed, but I heard your cry for your help. Don’t go Brooks Hatlen on us quite yet.
Back in the day when I was a newbie assistant trying to do whatever I could to stand out from the pack so that I could get into the Agent Trainee Program at CAA, I made an error of judgment in persuading a client (an Oscar winner whom I had done alot of grunt work for and whom I thought I had a good rapport with) to vouch for me so that I could get into the program. Although the client smiled to my face (over the phone), agreed to make the call and in fact did make the call, she apparently later felt used and unecessarily put-upon and she complained to her agent, who was then the head of the TV Talent Dept., Steve Tellez.
Steve called me into his office, told me why I was there and why his instinct was to fire me.
Then he proceeded to explain to me how I had messed up, why it was a mistake, and that I should never do anything like that again. And, armed with a lesson of the day, he sent me back to my desk.
Knowing all that I know about the industry now, I truly can’t believe he didn’t fire me AND that he would go so far as to impart a valuable lesson to me.
I have never forgotten that day, Steve. And I thank you for your intellect and compassion. CAA is monumentally stupid for letting someone like you go.
Steve Tellez is not only a great and wonderful man, but kept me working for the last ten years. He more than did his job well, he did it with class.
I wish him well, and may follow him wherever it may be.
Yep, Yep and Helen of Peel,
Mark my words,the women of WMA will suffer in silence no longer. When those 5 ladies come forward, they will stop the alleged merger in its tracks. If you thought taxes and egos were in the way, try a class action suit.
I love that the legacy that Jim, Dave, Irv and John will leave, is debt to 5 female agents.
Here’s what we are getting from the comments…Steve Tellez was jerry mcguire. Glenn was well-liked. Catherine was mostly unknown.
I will chime in on Tracy–she was once my agent. I thought her “shark-sense” would work for me. It did not. She is an inept shark, with dull teeth and no heart.
She’s terrible. A worthwhile cut. While no one wants to see anyone suffer, she’s bad at her job, will fold like a napkin at the slightest breeze of conflict, has no integrity with her clients. Tracy is that agent that has no barometer or opinion of what she herself thinks, outside of her dull and apparently numb sense of approximating what will sell. Talking to her about art is like talking to a Dalmation about Dali.
Which I suppose would be ok, if she could sell.
After I left her, and was show-running, she offered up a writer I was so-so on (and I could’ve been sold), she told me, “no worries. We have tons of other writers.”
I know its a business. But the best agents are true believers. And Tracy Murray hasn’t conveyed that she believes in anything.
Might that Oscar winner who felt put-upon be Sissy Spacek?
y’all are missing the point, at least on the TV side. there are less shows being put on the air. there are less packages for agencies to pick up. there are many shows that do get picked up with small or non-existent package fees. therefore these agencies have to cut costs because they will be booking less revenue. and since we know tv packages have carried many of these agencies for years, there will be signficant downsizing across the board.
the existential question that any middleman needs to ask in our business is whether or not the 400-750k a year job as an agent is going the way of the 400k a year A and R job in the music biz. i can tell you those don’t exist any more–my friends who had them run record labels and make 100k a year if they are lucky.
the business is changing. you all sound like a bunch of music exec types circa 2003. WAKE UP
Having sat across the table from Steve and Glenn on several occasions, I know these guys have got the goods. They know the business, the players, the market and are professional in a sadly uncommon way. “Lean and mean” may be the agency mantra of the moment, but that pendulem will swing back and CAA will regret this loss.
Bickel and Tellez will land on their feet just fine. Cream rises to the top.
What an amazing coincidence. Steve Tellez and I have been emailing back and forth about my material. I received an email from him today stating he’s in “transition”. I wished him the best. Then checked this site. Wow! I had no idea. I’m an unknown, unproduced writer he’s helping along. Yes, a CAA agent helping an unknown writer out of sheer faith. What a mensch. Would there were more like him.
I worked with Steve back in the 80’s at The Barry Freed Agency. He was a great agent and man – honest, patient and kind. He worked tirelessly and was my mentor. My heart feels for him.