David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. Another fun batch of strike-related minutiae
* Thousands of striking writers marched down Hollywood Blvd. this afternoon in a two-hour rally. Alicia Keys performed and homeless guys (or guys pretending to be homeless guys) wielded signs reading “Bums support writers.”
“One crucial fact that has been somewhat overlooked during the strike is that we, the members of the AMPTP, as producers of television programs and motion picture entertainment, have always believed that writers should be compensated when their work is distributed through new media and that they deserve to share in whatever success new technologies create. … We believe that a new, fair deal is possible. As an industry, we have done such deals before. We will do them again.”
* Meanwhile, CBS News employees repped by the Writers Guild have voted overwhelmingly – 81% were in favor – to approve a strike. A walkout is not imminent, though the network unsurprisingly deemed the vote “unfortunate.”
* Not unexpectedly, late night ratings are in freefall now that everything’s in repeats (from 37% for Leno to nearly 50% for “Saturday Night Live;” “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” are hurting, too, down 35% and 28%, respectively.
"‘If I were someone like Les Moonves, I'd be scared,’ [Tony] Gilroy [writer/director of ‘Michael Clayton’] says. ‘You don't want your employees thinking about opening their own store around the corner. We might be really tough competitors.’”
* An update on how many more original episodes of your favorites you have remaining to enjoy.
“As the strike drags on, an entertainment-starved audience might soon turn on Hollywood,” warns a former “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” writer (who isn’t). His musings are accompanied by a photo of a sad-eyed Tina Fey.