Writers expect pilot cutbacks
SCRIPTLAND
With hopeful rumblings of a potential contract agreement between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers buoying the town's spirits, many writers and their reps have already turned to speculation about the strike's aftermath. Since even a "positive" outcome (i.e. any kind of resolution at all) means going right back to selling to the same companies you've demonized for months, the initial re-integration could be, shall we say, tricky.
The question for many writers is, once the inevitable initial deluge of spec material disgorges itself, what will be the longer-term fallout from the conflict?
The television system seems poised for the biggest shift in policy. At the same time that the networks want to bring greater economic responsibility to their development spending, bad blood between the two groups may also dampen relations for the foreseeable future.
"The welfare system is hereby over," declares one screenwriter with projects at several studios, who requested anonymity out of fear of WGA reprisals.
In the pre-strike world, the networks typically hedged their bets by purchasing scores more pilot scripts than they ultimately would film and air. So any writer-producer in that loop had a good shot of selling a pitch during pilot season. Network executives are sending the signal that the inherent waste that comes with that extra padding will be curtailed, especially when put in the context of the profit-gouging counter-arguments they made in response to WGA revenue-sharing demands.
"When you get the [Peter] Chernins involved at that level -- and I think they will be now -- then their response is going to be, 'It's our fiduciary responsibility to be smarter about the way we spend things,' " says this writer. "Spending even $75,000 or $125,000 on a younger TV writer -- you do that enough and you're talking real money. So I think you're going to see things tighten in that regard."
NBC Universal President and Chief Executive Jeff Zucker has been especially vocal about the networks' need to be more strategic in their acquisitions and development decisions.
"I think that they all want to take advantage of this right now and say, 'All right, let's realign the model that we use, " says Steven Pearl, who, with his producing partner, screenwriter Allen Loeb ("21"), has just executive-produced new pilots for ABC and A&E. Pearl admits that the development process is "ridiculous" -- spending millions of dollars to develop and shoot each pilot in the hope that one may be a breakout every year or so -- but thinks the trimmed-down alternative doesn't make sense either.
