While Marcia Cross was lobbying Congress and Eva Longoria was fending off pregnancy rumors leaders from the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers finally began talking to each other again this week.
Their informal meetings have not yielded much in the way of good news, but at least they’re talking. An announcement made a couple of days ago said the warring parties would begin with informal bargaining and work their way to “full negotiations” in hopes of ending the nearly 3-month-old strike.
So where do fans of TV and TV award shows stand right now?
GRAMMY AWARDS
There’s a bit of good news on this front. In what is being called a “goodwill gesture,” the WGA recently announced it has decided against picketing the February 10th awards. However, that’s where the goodwill ended. The guild still refused to grant a waiver that would have allowed writers to work on the music show.
ACADEMY AWARDS
It’s anyone’s guess as to whether the entertainment world’s biggest night will go on as planned or if they will go the way of this year’s low-rated Golden Globes press conference flop.
Oscar’s future depends on the results of the informal talks I mentioned earlier. Should someone from either side budge and the dispute is somehow settled then the show would go on as planned and air live on ABC Sunday, February 24th, from Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre.
However, if the disputing parties don’t come to some sort of an agreement Oscar producers will have to go to Plan B. What that entails remains a secret. The Daily Show star Jon Stewart, who emceed the awards two years ago and is slated to host again this year announced earlier this week that he has no intention of crossing a picket line, if one still exists by Oscar night. A host-less show could spell trouble for the Academy.
SAG AWARDS and the NAACP IMAGE AWARDS
The Screen Actors Guild Awards, scheduled for Sunday night at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A. and the NAACP Image Awards, scheduled for February 14th, also at the Shrine, have been granted waivers by the WGA to go forward.
WGA leaders said they grant a waiver to SAG because “it’s an organization that shares our aims, and we are in solidarity with them.” It also helps that the show is not a huge money maker so producers won’t be pocketing huge revenues. The same goes for the NAACP awards. According to the WGA, the NAACP is an organization whose goals they share, and more importantly they are a “social justice organization.”
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