New Year New Deals

The WGA has struck an independent deal with David Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company, and as of this evening both Late Night with David Letterman and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson will be broadcast on CBS with scripts completed by their writers. This deal has been possible because Worldwide Pants owns both the shows and licenses them to CBS.

The agreement would bind Mr. Letterman’s company to the proposals the guild was prepared to propose to the producers before talks broke off earlier this month, including payment for material used on the Web and in other new media.

"We are a writer-friendly company," Rob Burnett, the chief executive of Worldwide Pants, said in a telephone interview. "We don't have a problem giving the writers what they are asking for. We think they deserve it, and we're happy to give it to them."

Other talk shows are also returning to the airwaves tonight, but without their writers. They include: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel Live in Los Angeles, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien in New York.

The WGA has decided to picket the studios where these shows are being broadcast:

Our picket will not be of the hosts themselves but the companies for which their shows are produced. Our purpose is to continue awareness of our strike and the media conglomerates against which we strike, and to encourage performers, politicians and others to honor our picket line and not appear as guests on these struck programs.

Nothing at all personal or defamatory is intended and we will take all measures to make sure the public and press are aware of our motives and issues.

If the companies want these shows to be back on the air with the writers whose creativity and talent make them so successful, the answer is simple. Bargain in good faith, negotiate, make a deal.