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Sunday, December 16, 2007

Letterman Seeks Deal With Writers’ Union

A brilliant move by David Letterman's production company Worldwide Pants, as an independent agent, to negotiate its own deal to return The Late Show and The Late, Late Show to air. While the other late night shows must deal with ownership issues from the broadcasters, Letterman can negotiate his own interim agreement and return live to the air. Competitively, that will give those shows a big edge. In fact, ratings last week showed ABC's news program Nightline beating the repeat runs of Leno and Letterman. Viewers want to watch original shows, not repeats.

Perhaps the lesson learned for the WGA, should an agreement be reached with Worldwide pants, is that you can't slay an 8 headed dragon at one time. Work on individual deals/heads and keep your demands reasonable. The more you succeed, the more the others will have to follow.