Halloween nightmare: The writers’ strike looms

I’m really, really trying to remain upbeat about the chances for the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) to reach a deal and avert a writers’ strike, but it’s getting increasingly difficult. Here’s the latest from Broadcast Newsroom (edited slightly for formatting issues, my emphasis added):

Comedy Central Not Laughing About Writers’ Strike

(Multichannel News) _ Politicians may be in for a treat this Halloween: Two of their most cutting critics, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, could be sidelined by a looming TV writers’ strike next week.

A strike by the Writers Guild of America would likely ‘at least temporarily’ defang The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. In all of cable TV, Comedy Central’s late-night marquee series would most immediately be impacted by a writer walkout — and possibly be forced to go into reruns.

The guild’s contract with TV producers and studios expires at the end of the day Wednesday, Oct. 31, and the union’s members have already authorized a strike. Both sides were negotiating late last week, but in a worse-case scenario there could be a walk-out when the pact expires Nov. 1.

. . .

“We’ll be affected by a strike as will be everybody else,” Comedy Central spokesman Tony Fox said. “The two shows that are most impacted are The Daily Show and Colbert, because they air four nights a week.”

In the event of a strike, one possibility is that Comedy Central will air reruns of both programs for a period of time, according to Fox.

The WGA has met with the writers of both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, according to Michael Winship, president of the WGA East, and “everybody is very clear on what our position is.”

Stewart, who earlier this month extended his contract with Comedy Central to 2010, is not only host The Daily Show, but is one of its writers, as well as executive producer.

“Jon and Stephen [Colbert] are both members of the Writers Guild,” Winship said. “They both write for their shows under the Writers Guild contract. So our position on that is that they could not do any of the work that they normally do as a Writers Guild member in terms of writing and performing material on the show.”

Asked if Stewart would be free to continue doing his show, for example, by just conducting interviews of guests, Winship said, “If it’s not writing, that would be his decision to make. I wouldn’t want to put myself in his conscience at this point in time. But he knows what the rules are; that would be a decision that Jon would have to make.”

Stewart’s lawyer, Tom Hansen, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Winship was upbeat about negotiations continuing even after the WGA contract expires.

“The sides are talking to each other,” he said. “People are starting to get away from their official positions and sort of moving away from talking at each other and actually now talking to each other. So I’m quite optimistic. We will continue talking as long as they are willing to bargain off our proposals.”

. . .

Full text of article here

Okay, it’s nice that the two sides are still talking and that there has been some movement lately (especially on the part of the AMPTP, who, in my opinion, really have given the writers a terrible deal in the past), but I’ve been following the talks lately, and I can’t help but worry.

I’ve been reading Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily, and it’s disheartening to hear that, as recently as yesterday, the WGA and AMPTP still weren’t doing any face to face negotiations. According to Finke’s sources:

Sighed a WGA insider: “While it is good to see some movement, the elephants still stand in the middle of the room. Without a real shift in the next six days, a strike appears inevitable.”

Another writer described the state of the negotiations after today’s session like this: “If [AMPTP President] Counter wanted to totally play hard ass and provoke a strike, he could. He’s not, yet. Things like this start on the small issues. If we were talking about a month left till contract expiration, I’d be an optimist. It’s not that that writers and producers are miles apart, it’s that the clock is ticking while movement, though it exists, is glacial.

“Kind of like a middle school dance, girls on one side, boys on the other. They will decide to dance at some point, but will it be curfew first?”

Read this full article at Deadline Hollywood Daily

I suppose it’s possible that things will still work out, that the two sides can reach agreement and a strike can be averted (or at least that negotiations will continue beyond the end of the month and the guild will refrain from striking, for now), but this just doesn’t sound good. Despite Stephen’s jocular claim that he would read the news to me over the phone in the event of a strike, I know I’ll be really, really disspirited if the shows go into reruns after next week.