Strike Watch

Is the WGA Strike over? We’ve been hearing unconfirmed chatter that the strike was ending on Friday for a while… now brother blog TVNewser is reporting that Disney’s Michael Eisner made an appearence on CNBC’s Fast Money last night to tell host Dylan Ratigan that the WGA strike “is over.” In Eisner’s exact words: “It’s over. They made the deal, they shook hands on the deal. It’s going, on Saturday, to the writers. A deal has been made. They’ll be back to work very soon,” Eisner predicted. “I know it’s over.”

“One thing that is great is, talent will win out. Talented writers will get new deals,” Eisner said. “But for the short term it was a mistake.”

Neither torrential rain, nor hail, nor Friday stopped the Writers Guild of America, East from their uptown picket this afternoon. From WGA spokeswoman Sherry Goldman’s strike recap email:

”Today, the WGAE held a ‘large-scale’ picket outside the One Life To Live Studios on West 66 Street off of Central Park West. Despite the torrential rain that was sometimes accompanied by hail, the spirits of the striking Writers Guild members were not dampened. More than 125 hearty striking WGAE members continued to show their solidarity by taking part in today’s picket. When their rain-soaked picket signs were too drenched to handle, the writers wrote their messages on their yellow rain slickers, which became billboards proclaiming the ‘On Strike’ message. Their favorite chant of the day was ‘We’re wet, we’re cold, but we will not fold.”

The boldfacers among the soaked picketers included: WGA Picket Perfect Attendance award winner and SNL head writer Seth Meyers, Tom Fontana, WGAE President Michael Winship, 30 Rock’s Tina Fey, Law and Order’s Vincent D’Onofrio and Katie Erbe, and others.

(image via clipart)

Variety is taking the WGA’s abrupt decision to cancel a media event that would have embarrassed CBS and Leslie Moonves as a sign that a resolution to he strike, presently in informal talks with the studios, ”may be gaining momentum.” From Variety:

”Next Tuesday’s event at the Cornell Club in Gotham would have also been designed to persuade research analysts to lower their investment ratings on CBS stock. The get-together was billed as an hour-long event to present the WGA’s analysis of the strike’s impact on the congloms generally and CBS specifically, featuring speeches by WGA West president Patric Verrone, WGA East prexy Michael Winship, SAG president Alan Rosenberg and writers and actors from CBS programs.”

Pressure to resolve the strike before the Oscar broadcast — generally the second most-watched television program of the year — is mounting. The show’s host, Jon Stewart, is privately telling friends that he will not cross a WGA strike picket.

(image via victoria will/nypost)

The WGA strike closes out the thirteenth week at One Life to Live studios on 66th street between Columbus and Central Park West tomorrow, February 1st. WGAE President Michael Winship will be attending the large scale rally and picket line. Last Wednesday, the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers began informal discussions. Both sides have agreed to make no public comments about the discussions until talks conclude. Nikki Finke, though, notes progress.

Both Nikki Finke and Cindy Adams are expressing optimism that the WGA strike is in its last throes and that the Academy Awards might actually happen. Finke predicted in December that the strike would end in time for the lucrative Oscar telecast. From DeadlineHollywoodDaily:

”I’m told the informal writer-mogul meetings are going ‘in a positive direction’ enough so that it’s beginning to look possible for the Academy Awards to proceed normally. Friday’s was an especially productive session, I’ve learned. ‘I feel optimistic. In my opinion, today was productive and collaborative and respectful. I thought it was a very good day,’ an insider told me.”

And Cindy Adams today predicts the strike ”should be over within two weeks.”

(image via deadlinehollywooddaily)

An tipster emailed FishbowlNY that ”Some took the cancellation of Friday’s WGE picket at Time Warner Building to be a concession by the writers and a good sign in terms of an upcoming agreement with the producers.” FishbowlNY asked Sherry Goldman, the WGA Spokesperson, who responded via email, ”I do think people took the cancellation as a sign the informal talks were moving to be more formalized, but that was wishful thinking. Informal talks are continuing but that’s not why the picket was cancelled. The picket was cancelled because we had too much stuff on our plate this week. We normally don’t do large-scale events on Fridays, which are reserved for our weekly big strike captain’s meeting.

”We were trying to do two things on one day. In addition, this week we had our ‘Oscar Awards’ conference on Tuesday, our Congressional visit all day Wednesday, our daily pickets at the morning and late night talk shows Monday through Thursday — and it was becoming logistically too difficult to do this major event, too — and not doing a strike captain’s meeting would leave us ‘unplanned’ for next week. So, since we had much big and small stuff this week, we decided to postpone.

”Don’t worry — we will reschedule it.”

(image via clipart)

Updated: To mark the conclusion of the twelfth week into the writers strike the WGA had planned to picket the Time Warner center at Columbus Circle tomorrow from 11 am to 2 pm. That picket, it was announced hours ago, has been postponed. The pickets in general, we noted originally in this post, seemed scaled back somewhat from the fiery first weeks of the strike when it was a daily affair with supportive celebrities supplying cocoa and pizza and bagels. Lately, though, it seemed the large scale rallying has tapered off to one a week. Sherry Goldman, spokesperson for the WGA East emailed FishbowlNY:

”…The reason our ‘large scale rallies’ seemed to be scaled back to one or two per week. It’s because, starting January 2nd, we also needed to have additional picket lines daily at the late night and talk shows. So, in addition to our ‘large scale rally’ — we have pickets Monday – Thursday at:

”The View/All My Children Studios on W. 66 Street from 8:30 am – 10:30 am

”NBC Studios (where Conan O’Brien tapes) from 3-5pm

”The Daily Show studio on 11th Avenue from 4-6pm

”The Colbert Report studio on W. 54 Street from 4-6pm

”These pickets are intentionally smaller — but they are picket lines that guests would need to cross to appear on the shows. We also informational leaflet audience members.

”… So, we are now doing about 17 picket lines per week — only one may be ‘large scale’ but we’re doing more.”

Duly noted.

(image via clipart)

As we enter the head into the thick of the twelfth week of the writers strike, the WGA East announced today that it is holding an informal reception for the nominees and recipients of the 2008 WGA Awards at the Hudson Theatre at the Millennium Broadway Hotel on Saturday, February 9th. ”We have chosen to honor the nominees and recipients of our awards in the context of our ongoing strike against the studios and networks,” said Michael Winship, president of the Writers Guild of America, East, in a statement. ”This will be a simple event that will rally us together as a union, note the solidarity of our membership in difficult times and recognize the creativity and skill of our members that make our industry possible.”

As we enter the twelfth week of the WGA strike, more than 40 Oscar, Pulitzer, Obie, Tony, Emmy, Writers Guild, Humanitas, and Dramatist Award winners will gather this afternoon at The Players social club ro send a message on the day of the Oscar nominations. Among the boldfacers expected: Blythe Danner, Law & Order: Criminal Intent’s Rene Balcer, Warren Leight and Alan Zweibel, among others.

(image via clipart)

The Law & Order: Criminal Intent gang — including Supervising Producer and writer Charlie Rubin with a strike-bearded Vincent D’Onofrio (center)– at yesterday’s WGA picket at the One Life To Live Studios off of Central Park West.