Posted on 12/02/2007 9:29:18 AM PST by abb
NBC yesterday laid off the nonwriting staff members of its two late-night entertainment shows, the “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” because of the strike by Hollywood scriptwriters.
The move had been expected after NBC executives declined to extend the period where the network had been paying the nonwriting employees of the shows. Mr. O’Brien has said he will pay the salaries of his staff for at least next week. Mr. Leno has not made a similar announcement, though a representative said this week that Mr. Leno was paying a Christmas bonus to staff members.
Many of the staff members laid off will lose other benefits while production on the shows remains shut down, a worker on one of the shows said. So far the late-night shows on other networks have not laid off their nonwriting staffs.
David Letterman has promised to continue to pay the salaries of staff members of his “Late Show” and Craig Ferguson’s “Late Late Show,” the two CBS late-night shows owned by his company, Worldwide Pants. And executives at both ABC and the Comedy Central cable network said they would continue to pay the staff members on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” “The Colbert Report” with Stephen Colbert and “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” BILL CARTER
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ping
Very nice picture, you need to make it your theme of this series of pings.
I think NBC should show reruns of “Camp Runamuck” and “My Mother the Car.”
Friday morning I posted a NY Times story reporting that the WGA rejected the latest offer from the Hollywood Suits and that the strike will go on.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1932707/posts
This posting received only four replies. FReepers have commented on previous simliar postings about what TV shows they like, don’t like, must see, etc. It is instructive that this post received so little attention.
What could be happening is that the TV viewing public may have realized how superfluous prime-time TV has become. They don’t care that no new shows are being written and produced. Many other entertainment and information sources are available.
This could be serious trouble for the industry. I think it may be good news.
Test patterns?
A few years ago, the San Francisco NBC channel poed Charlie of Dish re some demands or else. Charlie opted for the else and there was no Channel 4, the local NBC channel on Dish in the Frisco Area.
This went on for months, and my wife and I didn’t know that it happened. We found out when one of our sons visited and could get channel 4, the local NBC channel.
Your comment runs along the line re if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there. Does it make a sound?
Well, maybe that day is on the way. My extended basic cable package with Comcast continues to lose English language channels every few months. When it gets to the point where the only thing I have left is the Spanish language channels, Home Shopping Network, CNN, and the 3 major networks, maybe I will watch the network shows again.
Or, maybe not.
Good, fire them all.
a.b.c., c.b.s.,n.b.c. c.n.n. if they all went the way of the dinosaur it would be a good thing.
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