The Writers Guild of America West released its "2013 TV Staffing Brief" this week, examining the percentage of female, minority, and older writers staffed on shows during the 2011-12 TV season. While there's been a little bit of progress in the way of diversity, TV writing still seems to be a field dominated by white dudes as you can see in the full report.
We got a hot, throbbing anonymous tip that the writers of the Onion News Network joined WGA-East as of today, thus staving off the need for us to force guffaws while listening to NPR. "The ONN writers stood together and won real improvements,” WGAE Executive Director Lowell Peterson said in the WGA newsletter announcing the deal. "We welcome them into the WGAE and we look forward to a productive relationship with the company.”
The new agreement negotiated between WGA-E and ONN management will reportedly "increase minimum weekly compensation and provide pension and health contributions, retroactive to the start of writing earlier this summer. The producers also agreed [...]
The Writers Guild of America, West sent out a letter to members yesterday, urging them to stop writing for specific Comedy Central shows that are violating the WGA's regulations. While the letter didn't mention which specific shows are breaking the rules, the union said Comedy Central's production company, called Central Productions, hired writers on over two dozen new projects without making deals with the WGA for said writers. Here's an excerpt from the WGA letter, via The LA Times:
"No other major entertainment company has treated writers and their Guild so cavalierly. It is never easy to ask a fellow member to stop working. We understand all [...]
This morning marks the deadline for a potential ONN writers strike, as well as a serious blow to our right to uninterrupted comedy broadcasting. As of this morning, failed negations between the Writers Guide of America-East and The Onion, Inc. still leaves ONN writers, as WGA says, "the only scripted live action television show now in production where the writers did not work under a WGA agreement." Without a contract, the writers are working without the promise of benefits, Guild pay or a sufficient term of employment for the show's second season, scheduled to premiere in September.
The WGA reportedly sent out an email last week calling [...]
WGA's big-screen announcements are out, joining the small-screen nomination list released a few weeks back. The Original Screenplay category in particular is almost totally comedy-dominated, with Bridesmaids, 50/50, Midnight in Paris and Young Adult all getting nods. And everyone knows that's the best category (screw you, Adapted and Documentary Screenplays!) The full list of relevant TV and movie nominations is below.
