AMPTP bargain with SAG post this week posted late

AMPTP ready to bargain with SAG
Move follows announcement of celeb concerns
By DAVE MCNARY

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117980938.html?categoryid=18&cs=1

SAG’s contract with the AMPTP ends in June, but AMPTP would like to begin talks with the actors as soon as possible. SAG however is now the side that does not want to begin to sit for talks. SAG is not prepared to sit down with the studios until they know exactly what will be in their overall members’ best interest and not the interests of the most successful acting elite that have been urging SAG to begin contract negotiations. SAG feels that their greatest weapon is their ability of strike. Talking with studios at this phase will leave them with little negotiating power in the end especially since SAG has expressed its disapproval of the DGA negotiation and has not yet commented on the WGA strike. SAG has however spoken out against celebrities that are calling for qualified voting in which only actors that make a salary minimum would be able to set the guidelines for the new contracts. The big name actors however feel that SAG is giving way to much power to the majority of unemployed actors who do not have anything to lose.

USA-Indy Jones Article From last week

Chris Naoum
USA reels in ‘Indiana Jones’
Network lands ‘Crystal Skull’
By JOHN DEMPSEY

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117980959.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&query=indiana+jones

USA has made a deal with Paramount to buy the latest Indiana Jones movie along with the other three movies in the series for around 40 million dollars depending on how the newest film “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” does in the box office. USA has also recently picked up the rights to “Sex and the City: the Movie”, the new Will Ferrell flick and has secured the rights to other sequel sets such as the “Pirates of the Caribbean”, the “Oceans” and the “Bourne” series. These acquisitions are important because cable companies would not be spending so much on the rights to these movies if they did not think they would be able to turn a traditional advertising revenue from their television premiers and re-runs. This also then raises the question of what is a traditional advertising revenue? What if USA’s acquisition is only profitable to them because they can air the film on a number of sister networks to make up for the advertising loss on any one given channel? Traditional Ad revenue lost to the internet? That must be what the whole “writer’s strike” thing was about.

ABC Family Picks Up "Samarai Girl"

www.variety.com/article/VR1117980911.html

ABC Family recently picked up the six-hour longform Samarai Girl about a Japanese girl who becomes a samarai that fights the Japanese mafia ran by her adopted father. The show will join other shows headed by the networks in filming in Canada as it will begin taping in Vancover in the spring. The series will run in three parts in August, not dates and time have been set. ABC family also ordered 16 epsiodes for a second season of Greek.

Questions
1. If the longform is a success, will this cause the station to make it a series?
2. The show is another show being filmed in Canada, will this become a tradition among networks and cable stations? Will Hollywood shift from LA to Canada?

NBC unveils year round slate

For the first time NBC will be programming a 52 week schedule. The NBCU players: Jeff Zucker, Ben Silverman, and Marc Graboff will be meeting in NY on Wednesday with advertisers to discuss the plan.  52 weeks of programming, maybe not such a bad time to be a writer after all?

Article at http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117981116.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

Blu-ray wins high-def war

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117981097.html?categoryid=1009&cs=1

Due to recent announcements by major retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy, Toshiba has decided to give up on pushing HD DVD as the new high def format. Netflix has also announced to carry Blu-ray over HD DVD.

Questions:
Why Blu-ray? It seems that Blu-ray has always had an edge in this race, but that still doesn’t make sense to me since HD DVD came first.

New Show from the Creators of "Will and Grace"

“Will and Grace” creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick make a pilot for a sitcom for ABC. Warner Bros. TV sent a spec script for the show to ABC, and Kohan and Mutchnick wrote it before the writers strike. The show follows the “Will and Grace” tradition of pairing one straight friend with a gay friend, but the two main characters are business partners and are tested when they both find love at the same time. The show is centered on the two characters’ friendship and business relationship, which makes it different from Kohan and Mutchnick’s old pilot for a CBS sitcom. This deal was signed quickly, since Warner Bros. did not give ABC the script until last week after the end of the strike.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117981037.html?categoryid=14&cs=1&query=greenlit

Disney Increases Funds to UTV

UTV Software Communications is an Indian entertainment group in which Disney is spending $200 million to up its investment stake (from 14% to 32%) and another $30 million in the subsidiary UTV Global Broadcasting (to give it a 15% stake). NBC Universal and Viacom have also been taking a bigger interest in India’s entertainment industry; the spreading of big congloms across the world is (and has been) increasing rapidly. Because of this, foreign films/TV will be better financed and thus, consequently, more projects will be developed which Hollywood will have a share in. Not only that, countries are increasing incentives to shoot in their local (with tax breaks, monetary rewards, etc). I wonder how this will affect Hollywood’s development industry–are we losing development money within the U.S. because more spending is occuring internationally? Also, I feel that this globalization may not necessarily be a good thing; since Hollywood/the big studios will have a stake in these foreign companies, I can’t help thinking that foreign films might start becoming Americanized and feel the influence of an “imperial” U.S. within their local film/TV industry.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117981062.html?categoryId=19&cs=1

Uncertainty at HBO

Since the end of the strike, the fate of many shows have been decided within the last week, with some shows coming out successful, while others are proving to be DOA. This is the case with Lily Tomlin’s new show “12 Miles of Bad Road” on HBO which produced 6 out of 10 episodes were produced, but there has been no word on whether the remaining 4 episodes will be written or if the show will even air. This is yet another example of how the strike devastated news shows, even with high-profile stars and the amount of time, work, and money were expended for what could be possibly be little payoff. HBO has not commented on the series, but has focused much attention on the  ”In Treatment”, a new high-concept series that recently debuted. While the strike was necessary, it is unfortunate that many shows that were slated to debut may never have a chance to be seen. 

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117981077.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

CBS Renewals (cont’d)

I was going to post about the same thing Charla did, the CBS renewal slate. I was really surprised to see that “How I Met Your Mother” doesn’t seem to be on the list of renewed shows. I’m not an avid watcher, but I’ve heard great things about it. Better than two and a half men, anyway. The other interesting portion of this to me was that a lot of networks are having to decide whether to bring shows back this season and go into summer or proceed with a truncated schedule. CBS gets to avoid this a bit with so many of their big hits not being as serialized as shows on the other networks. Good news for them, I guess.

Networks Go Forward With Upfronts

All four major networks, and The CW, are going to still have upfront presentation in May despite the huge effects the strike has had on pilot season. All of the networks will most likely be scaling back their presentations to some extent, but the events will still go on. CBS seems to have everything set up most elaborately, while ABC plans to scale things back somewhat. Fox and The CW have merely stated that they will be having presentations, while NBC will participate in ad selling, but no presentation method (if there will be any at all) has been confirmed.

If the strike couldn’t stop the networks from having upfronts, will anything? Or will they just continue in this process that so many have criticized as being “flawed”? Will ad sales go down drastically due to the scaled-back presentations? What will NBC really scale back everything as much as they say they will?

Link: http://www.variety.com/VR1117980934.html