TV Notes: Soap operas' unusual issues lure writers across picket lines

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08007/847231-42.stm

Monday, January 07, 2008
By Lynn Smith, Los Angeles Times


Julie Berman (Lulu) and Brandon Barash (Johnny) in a scene that airs the week of Jan. 21 on ABC 's "General Hospital."

When talks broke down last month between the studios and striking writers, it began to hit home that scribes could be jobless for many months to come. One of those writers finally made the agonizing decision to stop picketing and go back to work.

The writer's show, a daytime soap, had run out of scripts. To this writer, the moral choice lay in keeping the show on the air.

"Daytime serials are not in a healthy situation," said the writer, who asked for anonymity, fearing fallout from both sides in the complex and highly charged standoff. "If we can keep shows on the air, I perceive it as something that needs to be done for the future generation of writers."

Although most daytime writers have joined their colleagues on the picket lines, others -- fearing for their jobs or the survival of the soap genre altogether -- quietly have gone back to work. Even those who are still picketing say soap writers' issues are unique.

Residuals, for instance, a key area of disagreement between the studios and the Writers Guild of America, are not an issue for them because their shows rarely are rerun. Instead, their interests tend to focus on health and pension benefits and minimum salary for the Internet, one place where the genre -- whose audience for the daytime perennials has been dwindling -- possibly could survive.

The specialized world of soap operas creates unique situations during Hollywood's periods of labor unrest; it's believed that during strikes in the 1980s, scab writers were hired to keep the soaps going. Some writers currently on strike say producers have tried to lure them back with promises of anonymity. And because the estimated 110 daytime writers are spread out geographically, many working at home, it would be relatively easy to keep such deals quiet.

FULL story at link.

[Mojambo]

1. I'd call them filthy fucking scabs, but it's hardly real writing anyway. n/t