Category: television writing

The Death of the All-Male Writers Room & What It Means

LB’S NOTE: For the past few years, it has seemed to me that most of the changes in our culture have been negative ones. (Gee, where could I have gotten that idea?) But here’s a positive change that I’m sure will make the culture of storytelling the world over better than it’s been since, oh, let’s say the Renaissance.

by Radhika Seth

On 18 June, ITV made headlines when it announced it would no longer commission shows by all-male writers. Saskia Schuster, ITV’s head of comedy and founder of the gender equality initiative Comedy 50:50, hoped the move would create more opportunities for women in an industry and genre that has long been dominated by men. What she didn’t expect was a backlash: op-eds condemning box-ticking quotas, viewers applauding shows that wouldn’t exist without all-male writing teams (Peep Show, Dad’s Army, Blackadder) and critics on Twitter labelling her a militantly feminist member of the #GalQaeda.

“The focus was never on banning male teams,” Schuster tells Vogue. “The goal is inclusivity. The current number of female writers in comedy is woefully low and before I started Comedy 50:50, I was being pitched very few scripts by women.” Determined to change the culture, she rewrote her contracts, asking comedy shows to aim for equal representation and scripted commissions to demonstrate their best endeavours to include female voices. She also created a database of more than 500 women writers to help producers find new collaborators. read article

Status Report from Newly Re-elected WGAW Prez David A. Goodman

LB’s NOTE: I’d say this covers just about everything re where the Writers Guild of America is now and where it – we – want to be in the immediate future.

September 20, 2019
Dear Members, read article

In Praise of 10 Superbly Written TV Series

Found on the interwebs: The kind of article we don’t see often enough in what remains of the original Hollywood trade publications. In others words, critical praise for our favorite oft-forgot species – writers.

The Americans

by Tim Goodman
Chief TV Critic, The Hollywood Reporter

I had a week off, ostensibly to do something other than watch or think about TV — and yes, some of that actually happened — but there’s always peripheral brain creep when it comes to television, with everything from highbrow conceptual ideas to lower-brow (but probably more fun) list-making clanging around in my head. A recent random thought that popped up concerned great writing on television. Quickly — in about a nanosecond — four examples came to mind.

The result was oddly troubling. But at least in that flash of a moment, it was clear that I don’t have recency bias. read article

WGAW 2019 Officers and Board of Directors Election Results

via TVWriter™ Press Service

EDITOR’S NOTE: Current Writers Guild of America policy regarding agents, agencies, and TV series packaging were backed by a solid 77% of the voters in this year’s election. Solidarity! for the win.  Here’s the Guild’s official announcement.

The Writers Guild of America West today announced the results of its 2019 Officers and Board of Directors election. read article

Hollywood Ethics – The Skeletons in Television’s Closet

NOTE FROM LB: The following report about the 5 yearish long lawsuit between the stars and creators and and producer of Bones – profit participants all – has absolutely nothing to do with the ongoing dispute between Hollywood writers and agents.

I repeat: They have nothing to do with each other. read article