WGA Getting Out The Vote For ’101 Best Written TV Series’ List

COMMENTS (14)

• It’s basically conventional wisdom that TV has surpassed Film in the US as an artistic medium. This list is long overdue.

  Comment by Alex — Tuesday May 15, 2012 @ 1:26pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I think it’s great to recognize good TV writing, but it saddens me to see my guild wasting time (and dues money) on this sort of project at a time when I routinely get my residual checks months late; when we can’t get meaningful enforcement action against the studios on even the weak WGA contract now in force–on late pay, free rewrites, etc.

  The sorry fact is, the WGA under current leadership doesn’t much care about that stuff when there’s a cocktail party to plan, a junket to take, a PAC to run (for no discernable benefit to members), or now a list of “best writers” (many of them long dead presumably) to compile. Wake up, folks–it should be about improving pay and working conditions for your members, period. And I’m sick of all the tortured arguents that this kind of fluff has any bearing on that real mission.

  Comment by PitifulPeacock — Tuesday May 15, 2012 @ 1:32pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • PitifulPeacock –

    Don’t worry. When all is said and done, the 101 Best Written TV event will not cost any dues money and is not distracting WGA staff from any of its core service and enforcement functions. Most work on the contest is being handled by outside firms. The WGA Board would never had approved the event if they did not feel it ultimately benefited our membership, and cast a worthy spotlight on the role of Hollywood writers. Cheers to the WGA for their effort.

    –Ari

    Comment by Ari B. Rubin — Tuesday May 15, 2012 @ 2:01pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Ari–

  Thanks for the thoughtful response, but I’m not sure I buy it. There was Board time spent on this “101 Writers” thing (so says
  your post), and WGA staff time (at a minimum, the press release to Deadline Hwd and others), and no doubt there will be more time and money spent on this entirely forgetable effort before it’s done.

  Look, it’s a zero sum game; the more the WGA seeks attention for nonsense and fluff like this, the more it crowds out the important stuff that should constitute the guild’s core message (see my original post for some examples). I think one reason that contempt for the guild is so high among members I know, and participation so low (check out voter turnout for any WGA election you care to choose), is because there’s a widespread feeling WGA that leadership and senior staff are forever and cluelessly pursuing the trivial over the crucial.

  Comment by PitifulPeacock — Tuesday May 15, 2012 @ 4:17pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • “…[WGA] leadership and senior staff are forever and cluelessly pursuing the trivial over the crucial.”
    Sadly, it’s true. (But if I may quibble, saying ‘cluelessly’ implies that they don’t realize the disservice being done to members, when that is not the case.) Anyway, I appreciate your posts – and your screen name.

    Comment by NeverMore — Tuesday May 15, 2012 @ 6:59pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Peacock, the reason contempt for the Guild among members is so high is that contempt for members by the Guild is at an all time high.

    Staff has the greatest F-U attitude I’ve ever experienced in decades of membership, and it clearly comes from the top down, starting with David Young. Recently, Chuck Slocum told a longtime member that she wasn’t a “real member” because she isn’t current active right now, after a 20 year career in the business. It’s appalling and disgusting.

    Incidentally they spent more than $30,000 on the Top 101 Screenplays party, which the great majority of members was not invited to. Thanks!

    Now get back to work taking even more profitable terms out of our contract (like the 1.2% of 100% Internet residual rate we had in the contract before they took us on strike and…oops…gave it up.) There’s a stench in LA and it’s coming from 7000 W. Third.

    Comment by Real Member — Tuesday May 15, 2012 @ 9:56pm PDT  Reply to this post

    • @PP, @RM:
      The Guild really p!sses me off. Do you know if anyone has created a site where we can talk about these things more in depth? Thanks.

      Comment by Zoe — Wednesday May 16, 2012 @ 6:37pm PDT  Reply to this post

      • I sure hope there’s such a place to vent–it’s about time the members spoke out. If anyone knows of such a site, please post it here. The site “Artful Writer” used to do a pretty good job of monitoring WGA hubris and incompetece, but I think that site has gone to ground.

        Comment by PitifulPeacock — Wednesday May 16, 2012 @ 7:12pm PDT  Reply to this post

    • PitifulPeacock, Zoe, Real Member & Nevermore,

      Please read the letter below from Chris Keyser and Howard Rodman. I can assure you that this just scratches the surface. Guild staff, Officers, the Board and member-volunteers devote countless hours wrestling with substantive matters that are important to writers – in particular improving enforcement efforts. Please do your research before you make spurious claims and disparage the hard work that hundreds of people – many of us volunteering our time – are doing on behalf of WGA members. If you have genuine issues or complaints, alert the Guild or an Officer or someone on the Board of Directors.

      May 17, 2012

      Fellow Writers –

      Spring is a time of transitions in our business: the television season is coming to a close, with announcements of the next just made and the summer movie season kicking off early. We are closer today to the next WGAW election than we are to the last. Indeed, our Board Nominating Committee has been constituted and the call for members who are willing to run and to serve has commenced. If you are inclined to do so, we encourage you to consider it. It goes without saying that the Guild is only as strong as the commitment of its members. And we can both attest to the fact that we continue to live happy, productive lives, despite our personal decision to serve.

      Now that we have worked closely together for the better part of a year, it seems appropriate for the two of us to write you and share the progress of the last few months. It has, in fact, been a busy time. As we remain nearly two years out from our next negotiation, our focus has been on some very basic things: the expansion of the WGA tent and of the MBA to cover the full range of work done by writers in an increasingly multi-faceted industry; the tracking of trends in the day-to-day life of working writers; the enhancement of conditions as we find them, “on the ground;” and the improvement in the quality and quantity of communication between the membership and its elected leadership and staff.

      Most particularly, the work of a number of long-term efforts has, with the spring, finally come to fruition. It is news of these that we most wanted to share with you here.

      The first piece of good news we’d like to share is that the WGA has signed an agreement with People’s Production Company (PPC), the Amazon affiliate responsible for professional content development and production. Significantly: it is a full MBA deal, covering new media, television, and film. Amazon thus becomes the first major internet portal to sign the MBA (and, of course, we hope that it will not be the last).

      The Amazon/PPC agreement should make it easier to achieve other, similar agreements with new media entities. And in the longer run, the agreement will make it more difficult for old media companies to attempt to eviscerate the MBA citing new media competition as pretext.

      As we all recall, we struck for 100 days in 2007-08 over a variety of issues, but perhaps most significantly in order to plant our flag in that rich and amorphous land called new media. That planted flag means little unless we expand, and protect, the territory surrounding it.

      Even in this fast-growing and often chaotic environment, Guild members are the key creators of professional written entertainment content in the digital world. Our members are now penning series for distribution on Netflix, Yahoo!, YouTube/Google, et. al. There are well over a hundred Guild-covered web series. Many of these projects have budgets comparable to TV series, and are being compensated in line with TV standards. If you or your representatives are in the process of negotiating a made-for-new media deal, consult with the WGAW contracts department or the WGAW organizing department—and do look at the WGAW Guide to New Media. And if you’re working on a video game, know that many of our members have succeeded in getting employment in the videogame space covered by Guild contract.

      Under the Guild’s Working Rule 8, members are obligated to work only for signatory companies in our core jurisdiction, which now includes new media. This is critical to maintaining the standards we’ve established for professional writers throughout our history. Some writers assume, at times incorrectly, that their project is being done for a signatory company; or assume that a certain area of work can’t be covered by a Writers Guild contract. Don’t assume: for every job or potential job, verify that the production company is signatory to the MBA (Signatories Department: [323] 782-4514). If you are approached for a project with a non-signatory company, it is to your absolute advantage as well as your obligation to make sure that the project is done under Guild contract. The Guild will work with you to gain coverage.

      On another front, that of basic cable, the spring brought more good news. A bit of background may be useful here. In 2011, when Comcast acquired a controlling interest in NBCU, the entertainment industry guilds faced the uncertainty of dealing with a company whose history, in its own industry, was decidedly anti-union. During the process of gaining approval for its merger, Comcast had repeatedly pledged to abide by the standards of our industry and to continue the relative cooperation between labor and management that has kept our business stable, profitable, and a model of innovation for decade after decade.

      All of that was well and good. The question, though, remained: would Comcast be true to its word and, in negotiations, acknowledge the right of all writers to choose coverage under our MBA and to join the ranks of their brothers and sisters in the WGA?

      A year and a half ago, we began a campaign to determine just that, and to cover writers on the Comcast-owned channel E!. It was an arduous process. But just a couple of weeks ago, writers on two E! comedy-variety shows – The Soup and Chelsea Lately – completed negotiations and are now covered by WGA contracts.

      As we said, the road to this ultimate success was both long and difficult. Though the writers of both shows properly elected to be organized under the WGA and its basic agreement, Comcast did much in its power to thwart those desires. They attempted to weaken the writers’ leverage by excluding head writers and on-air writing talent from WGA coverage. They argued that the ultimate agreement need not be an MBA deal. Against all of this, the writers of both shows stood firm. They participated fully and directly in the bargaining, week after week, making it clear that they would accept nothing less than a full MBA deal and coverage for all writers. In the end, their determination won them exactly that.

      For this success, our thanks go out to many people: First, to those members of the WGA who gave their support to this campaign, particularly those NBCU writers who signed a letter of support for their E! colleagues; to the Guild staff who guided this process wisely and patiently; and, most resoundingly, to the writers of The Soup and Chelsea Lately, who were both brave and resolute.

      For themselves, they won an excellent deal and the right to say what should always have been true: that they are part of the WGA. For the rest of us, they’ve set a precedent and a critical one: that writers will not accept anything less than an MBA deal from Comcast/NBCU.

      It is just one step. But a step very much in the right direction.

      These are the headlines, but not the whole story. We did not want to conclude this letter without a brief mention, at least, of some of the most important work the Guild has undertaken in the first four months of 2012 and some of the projects that will carry us through the summer and the fall.

      * Beginning in June and continuing over the course of the year, we will hold a series of informal conversations. Each month, writers will be invited to join a Board Member, in his or her home, accompanied by senior staff and elected leadership. These gatherings will take place all across the city, so that every L.A.-area writer will find a date and a location that is convenient to continue the discussion about where we are and where we are going as an industry, as a Guild and as individual writers and business people.

      * The Screenwriters Survey has been completed – with an excellent response rate from you, for which we are very grateful. We are now in the process of compiling and analyzing the results.

      * The WGAW PAC held a successful event, attended by over one hundred members and shortly we will begin the process of interviewing candidates to determine who will receive our support. At the same time, our political and public policy departments continue their work in Washington, lobbying on your behalf on issues ranging from data caps to the proposed Verizon-Cable Company deal.

      * The Showrunner Training Program graduated yet another class – the seventh in its history – and remains the gold standard for educational programs in the industry. The New Members Committee continues to redefine the way in which we greet and mentor the most recent additions to our Guild.

      * The City of Lights City of Angels Film Festival, which celebrates the contribution of French cinema and which we sponsor in conjunction with the DGA, was a big hit yet again. Our sponsorship of COLCOA reinforces both our commitment to collaborate closely with our sister guilds and to support the work of independent filmmakers, commitments that are critical to our members, artistically and financially.

      * The Diversity Committee is preparing to kick-off its new Feature Access Project, which aims to provide opportunities for minority writers by connecting them, directly, to producers and studio executives. Submissions for that program are now being accepted and, if you qualify, we urge to apply.

      * You have, in the last few days, received an email inviting you to participate in 101 Best Written TV Series – a survey to determine which one hundred and one television series our members consider to be the best written of all time. A companion to the 101 Best Screenplays, this project will highlight our contribution to the art of television over the last seventy-or-so years. It should be fun and spark no small number of debates. Most of all, it will shine a spotlight on writers, which is good for all of us – even those of us whose series must have just missed the cut. Don’t forget to vote by June 15!

      In conclusion, we are happy to report the ways in which new media are increasingly covered by our Guild; we are happy to report that due to the determination and steadfastness of writers, Comcast is, at least for two of its important shows, honoring the traditions of our industry.

      We are excited about the ways in which the ongoing work of the Guild unites and protects our members. We are, of course, a congregation of individual writers, each of us with his or her own joys and concerns. But even, perhaps especially, in difficult economic times, the Guild creates community, protects professional standards, and works to ensure that our children will enjoy the opportunity that we’ve known: the ability on a good day to make a living with grace and dignity in the profession of writing.

      Very best regards,

      Chris & Howard

      Comment by AM — Thursday May 17, 2012 @ 11:50am PDT  Reply to this post

• I hope The Wire makes the list. Maybe Degrassi: Next Gen, too. But not Degrassi Street.

  Comment by J Bieber Lvvr — Tuesday May 15, 2012 @ 5:02pm PDT  Reply to this post

• The Twilight Zone.

  Nothing has ever come close to that level of storytelling excellence in television.

  Though I’d also nominate:

  Star Trek
  Monty Python’s Flying Circus
  The Prisoner
  Babylon 5
  Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

  So they’re geek choices, so what? The glitterati will nominate West Wing, MASH, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, etc. etc. etc.

  Comment by wg — Tuesday May 15, 2012 @ 7:57pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Yes, it is about high time TV scribes got duly noted.

  I hope that:

  “Homicide: Life on the Streets”,

  “The Wire”,

  “Freaks and Geeks”,

  “Barney Miller”,

  “West Wing”,

  “Frasier”,

  “Twilight Zone” (the brilliant Rod Serling series),

  “All in The Family”,

  “Star Trek” (the original series with Shatner and Nimoy),

  and “The Wonder Years” make the list….. That’s my 10 percent contribution…

  Agree? Disagree?

  Comment by bobby the saint — Tuesday May 15, 2012 @ 8:43pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Why the limit on mini-series length for eligibility? Leaving out 4- and 5-hour productions, such as BAFTA award-winning (one for writing!), Emmy nominated UK series “Sherlock,” means this list will NOT be representative of the “101 best written TV series.”

  I’m with PitifulPeacock: the Guild could better spend its time on projects that at least have some credibility.

  Comment by Wynne — Tuesday May 15, 2012 @ 10:16pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • The feeling was that anything under six hours fell more into the territory of “movie” in terms of structure and plotting, while mini-series six hours or longer were constructed more like series.

    Comment by AM — Friday May 18, 2012 @ 4:24pm PDT  Reply to this post