Today in writers’ strike news:
* The upside of the strike is that it has freed up Hollywood talent to devote some quality time to their passion projects. Like going to jail. Kiefer Sutherland gets 24 days, times two, for a DUI infraction and probation violation.
* I get the same press releases as the Washington Post’s Lisa DeMoraes, but she thankfully has done the work of summing up NBC and CBS’s announcements of their winter strike schedules. Jericho, which had always been planned for midseason, returns in February. Otherwise, the winners are: fans of Big Brother, American Gladiators and Law and Order: Criminal Intent reruns. Losers: Your eyeballs.
* Meanwhile, at Nikke Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily, which has become my first morning read for strike info, Finke reports that the WGA has re-introduced the issue of writer’s guild coverage for reality-TV “editors” at day 6 of the resumed talks. The comments are as interesting as the original post on this one, with Finke’s insider audience suggesting that: (a) the demand, which the guild has tried before, is likely strategic, giving them something to put on and then magnanimously take off the table, because (b) no way in hell will the studios go along with it, since reality TV is precisely what the networks count on to get them through writers’ strikes. Best suggestion yet: “Combine reality and new media demands and demand to represent that cat playing piano on You Tube.”