Force Majeure: The clock is ticking

Networks may soon begin cutting costs by dumping production deals under the force majeure clauses in their contracts, the Wall Street Journal reports:

“(I)n the past few days some writer-producers as well as showrunners quietly have been told of studios' plans to send out force majeure letters soon, according to two NBC producers who received these notifications. The force majeure clause in many production deals goes into effect six weeks into a labor action, enabling studios to cancel those deals. The studios have many such deals on the books, and the chance to wipe out deals that weren't yielding hit shows was thought to be one appealing aspect to the studios of a protracted strike.”

Once the networks drop that deadwood from their books, do you think they might be happy to start renegotiating?

The story also discusses what we mentioned over the weekend – that David Letterman may be returning, writing team intact, by negotiating an interim deal through his independent production company. (Letterman’s deal would also include “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson;” NBC announced today that Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien would return to the air on Jan. 2, albeit without their writing staffs.) The Journal drops this scud, however:

“People close to the guild said there was some disagreement among members over whether the guild should make way for late shows to return, with some primetime showrunners – writer-producers responsible for the day-to-day operation of TV series – arguing against it.”

If the primetime folks get their way, then the writers strike will have officially run off the rails, because it will then be obvious to all concerned that it’s about personal pettiness (the primetime guys don’t want the late-night guys to be doing something they’re not) rather than good-faith negotiations and fair deals.

The Journal also says (wow, they got a whole bunch of stuff in one story) that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert may return sans writers by Jan. 7. Stewart wants to arrange a deal like Letterman's, but since Comedy Central owns the show, that might not be as easy to swing as it might be for Dave. And as funny as Stewart and Colbert are, watching them busk without material for a half-hour each night might just underscore just how important the shows’ writers are.

Meanwhile, a few in the WGA are apparently coming around to a notion I’ve championed from the outset of the strike: Abandoning the fight to control reality TV.

The L.A. Times doesn’t think that issue will remain on the bargaining table much longer. Writers opine that those working on reality shows, editing sequences together out of context to make the participants look even stupider than they already are, are engaging in forming a narrative and therefore should be members of the Guild. Producers of course disagree – if they had to pay these people writers’ salaries, they argue, then they might as well go ahead and make something halfway decent and not this reality crap.

Reality-TV has become America’s version of a Jakarta shoe factory – young people being paid sh!t money for impossibly long hours. Given that most reality shows tank these days, it’s the sheer cheapness of these shows that make them look good to producers and networks.

As altruistic as the WGA may appear in wanting to take over reality and clean up its labor practices, this is probably a broader social issue, as suggested in the story:

“(S)tate Sen. Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), chairwoman of the Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, has scheduled hearings for Feb. 1 on the reality-TV labor law issue. ‘We intend to monitor this situation closely to ensure that reality-TV story producers and other reality-TV employees are paid in accordance to California labor laws,’ Migden said in a statement.”

And SAG president Alan Rosenberg sent a letter to the WGA: “Your fight is our fight. … (P)lease be assured, Screen Actors Guild will stand with you for as long as it takes.”

So far, they could call the strike from both sides “Sound and fury signifying nothing.”