In 1988, Carsey-Werner made a deal with the WGA during the strike and went back into production. I’ve been asking incessantly on the picket line why something like that doesn’t happen today. A recent Wall Street Journal article poses the same question:
It would be nice if some of the few remaining independents stepped up and made deals, even if they were mainly symbolic. Why couldn’t a company like Act III, or even Werner himself, come to an agreement with the WGA right now, favored nations, landing where we all think this is going to go anyway.
But what’s more baffling to me is that someone like Peter Chernin or Les Moonves doesn’t do it. If one of those guys had the balls to break off from the alliance, the potential increase in market share would be huge. Any one of the networks could take over prime time by being the only one with new shows. And deep down, I think these guys want to destroy each other even more than they want to destroy us. So what’s stopping them?
Jack Silbert, curator