Writers lash out against network choices

Leno, reality TV add to talent Guild unrest

By BRIAN LOWRY

The talent guilds could claim a rare unqualified victory last week when CBS and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences abruptly scrapped plans to "time-shift" the Primetime Emmy Awards by pre-taping acceptance speeches for some actors, writers and directors.

Of course, the decision came after the academy had labored to convince the guilds that the proposed alterations weren't so bad. And perhaps they weren't, viewed strictly in a vacuum.

For many in the creative community, however, this slight represented the latest indignity, the final straw, in a long line of them, which has caused ill feelings to fester and websites devoted to stoking resentment to thrive. Talent might talk about how much they enjoy watching "American Idol" with their kids, but they hate what reality TV has done to their business. And to quote a certain Jedi master, fear leads to anger, anger leads to aggression, etc.

Yet because these changes have occurred so gradually -- "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," after all, is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary -- other than the writers strike that disrupted the 2007-08 season, there has been little to crystallize these feelings, which bubble over intermittently in response to some fresh outrage.

Beyond the Emmy backlash, for example, criticism has erupted regarding NBC's decision to move Leno to 10 o'clock, occupying five primetime hours with a considerably less-expensive alternative to the scripted dramas that once thrived there.

At the TV Critics Assn. tour, a panel of writer-producers publicly unloaded on NBC in a manner historically rare among a class of people always uncertain about who the buyer of their next show might be.

"Rescue Me" producer Peter Tolan characterized the Leno gambit as an act of surrender, saying that NBC has "given up" and should "put up a white (flag)" outside its building. "The Shield's" Shawn Ryan said the move feels particularly "offensive" because the network once equated with TV's most prestigious adult dramas, such as "Hill Street Blues," "used to stand for something better."

Ryan also zeroed in on an underlying source of this tension that goes well beyond NBC, saying that the attitude among executives is, "If they can do without the writers, they will." And more to the point, increasingly, they have.

For writers, the belt-tightening that helped motivate stripping Leno has been the death of a thousand cutbacks. In this context, the irritation directed at the TV academy wasn't just the bleating of easily riled artists with a Rodney Dangerfield complex but the byproduct of a system where the surface area devoted to scripted fare has been steadily shrinking on the major networks -- with no assurances that cable or new media will offset what's being lost.

Handing nearly a quarter of NBC's lineup to Leno follows earlier actions that also reduced broadcasting's dramatic profile, from NBC allocating four hours to "Sunday Night Football" to airing reruns Saturday nights to expanding reality series like "The Biggest Loser," "Dancing With the Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance" to two bloated, schedule-filling hours.

In that context, it's not surprising that writers latched onto the Emmy effrontery, when originally announced, as what the Writers Guild of America West dubbed nothing less than "a symbolic attack on the primacy of writing in our industry."

Because in the eyes of writers, that "attack" has come on multiple fronts -- not merely symbolic, but financial and emotional. The effects, moreover, have been cumulative over time. Viewed that way, what the out-of-town press saw as an intramural skirmish can't be dismissed as a simple tantrum or wild overreaction.

It's mostly happenstance, of course, that the Emmy telecast will air less than a week after Leno makes his debut, but the proximity of those events shouldn't be overlooked in contemplating why TV talent sounded so persnickety about the prospect of pre-taping a few awards.

Granted, scaring the TV academy's easily startled leadership into retreat might seem trivial in the larger scheme of things. But for talent, it's a moment where their long-simmering frustration and apprehensions not only surfaced but were actually heard -- even as the time shifted away from them elsewhere cuts straight into their livelihoods.