Month: June 2015

‘Jane the Virgin,’ ‘Transparent’ Creators Talk State of Comedy

It was “A Night in the Writers’ Room over at Variety the other day, and here’s what some top TV writers had to say:

Variety's A Night In The Writers' Roomby Elizabeth Wagmeister

Comedy scribes Adam F. Goldberg, Mike O’Malley, Jennie Snyder Urman and Jill Soloway gathered for a panel at Variety‘s A Night in the Writers’ Room event Tuesday evening at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills Calif.

With so many examples of television comedy represented — “The Goldbergs,” “Survivor’s Remorse,” “Jane the Virgin” and “Transparent” — moderator Cynthia Littleton, Variety‘s managing editor of TV, asked what makes up the varied genre nowadays. read article

Think You’re Not Being Paid Enough for Your Writing?

Obviously not a BBC writer
Obviously not a BBC writer

by Team TVWriter™ Press Service

Don’t despair, chum, because you’re in good company. The Writers Guild of Great Britain recently revealed that members have reported that the pay they receive under various BBC “shadow scheme” guidelines is the equivalent of about $3 to $4 1/2 an hour…and we’re talking about big time pros walking on EASTENDERS, HOLBY CITY, CASUALTY, and other long running BBC shows.

Turns out that even with agents and credits up the wazoo, writers still end up with a total fee of a thousand pounds ($1527.65) for writing as many as three drafts of a script stretched out over a period of more than three months.  And, according to the WGGB, there’s no guarantee of an assignment during all that time. That’s right, frustrated newbies of the U.S., these poor Brits are busting their chops on spec.

The BBC has, of course, responded because it has lots of salaried employees making – we reckon – a bit or two more than $3/hour who have little else to do. Here’s how an unidentified spokesman put it: read article

TVWriter™’s Top Posts of the Week Ending June 12th

Victoria Beckham tweets after announcing she is expecting fourth child 11-wide

The posts visitors viewed most on TVWriter™ during the past week were:

LB: Here’s What’s Happening with the 2015 People’s Pilot read article

Bryan Fuller Talks About Showrunning HANNIBAL

wotta guy!
Gotta luv young Lecter

And, thanks to the wonders of the interwebs, we all get to listen. C’mon, admit it – this really is grand.

And so, if you’re a lover of extreme TV, is HANNIBAL:

Bryan Fuller speaks on ComicMix read article

The Internet Has Finally Become TV

Well, actually it happened earlier than our title may lead you to believe because we didn’t find this story until 3 weeks after it first came out. But, plainly, nobody’s made nearly as big a deal about it as they should have. So here TVWriter™ is, setting the record straight and proving once again that, “We Live In The Future!” Yeah, baby:

stuffby Alissa Walker

In the next five years, more than 50 percent of the world’s population will have internet access, and 80 percent of internet traffic will be devoted to video, says a new study by Cisco. But it’s not just billions more dinky YouTube videos that will suck up all that bandwidth. It’s our shifting TV habits.

The number of online videos and and the size of those videos is skyrocketing as more and more of us are ditching the traditional cable package and turning to our internet-enabled devices to watch television. What’s more, we’ll increasingly be streaming really big video files, like the high-quality 4K video needed to play on HD monitors. By 2019, 30 percent of internet-connected TVs are expected to be 4K. read article