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. Strike Updates: Day One of the Entertainment-Depriving, Industry-Destroying, Economy-Paralyzing Battle of Civilizations
As Your Mayor has been consumed today with covering the Writers Guild of America strike, I have not had time to share with you some of the nuggets my intensive investigation has produced. Herewith, some of the highlights of the day’s events:
* The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) announced its latest threat: To release all future entertainments directly to DVD, so that writers would only get paid a nickel per unit sold.
* The WGA fined itself for writing copy for several new picket signs after last night’s midnight deadline. Amongst the offending signs: “Is Our Writers Earning?”, “‘(Huge Explosion):’ Can Just Anyone Come Up With Something Like That?” and “Despite The Current Political Landscape, These Jokes Don’t Just Write Themselves.”
* After one writer on the picket line got mowed down by an impatient driver trying to get onto the Sunset-Gower studio lot, other writers, sensing that huge legal settlements would be a nice way to tide them over financially during a prolonged strike, began hurtling themselves in front of any Lexus, Hummer or Mercedes attempting to enter a studio or network.
* Fox announced that it would begin production of a new reality series on the writers strike, entitled “Between Projects,” but, since it was a reality show, none of the writers appearing on it would get paid.
* Writers eventually capitulated to all of AMPTP’s requests, but AMPTP, incapable of dialing back on the bluster, issued the same boilerplate statement: “It is unfortunate that they choose to take this irresponsible action.”