Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.forbes From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Not with my money you don't Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 14:52:03 EST Message-ID: "Copyright 1992 Forbes, Inc. Any further reproduction or redistribution without the express written permission of Forbes and ACC is prohibited." Not with my money you don't Diane English, creator of TV's Murphy Brown, likes to bash Republicans on her show and off. She's pretty good at union-bashing, too. By Gretchen Morgenson IN HOLLYWOOD, the definition of a conservative is a liberal movie produc- er who's been mugged by the unions. That qualifies Diane English, creator of the wisecracking, Quayle-bashing television character Murphy Brown and a self-described liberal, for arch- conservative status. Earlier this year Love and War Pro- ductions, Inc., which English owns with her husband, Joel Shukovsky, began shooting the pilot for her new show, Love & War. A Hollywood craft union, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, tried to organize some 30 of the show's production people--modestly paid camera operators, sound technicians, makeup workers and such, making maybe $800 a week and up. Among other things, a union con- tract would provide health and pen- sion benefits, which Love and War Productions was not offering at the time, according to the union, at a cost of roughly $2 extra an hour. English and Shukovsky summarily replaced the workers. ''We had to protect our ability to produce the show,'' says John Drinkwater, executive vice pres- ident and general counsel at Love and War Productions. Isn't replacing workers during an organizing drive illegal? The IATSE's spokesperson, John Doering, thinks it is. A representative for some of the former crew members filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming the production com- pany engaged in unfair labor prac- tices. The NLRB is investigating. Meanwhile, Love & War is being produced by a nonunion crew. At the other end of Hollywood's pay scale, English's firm gets an esti- mated $100,000 per episode--$2.2 million a year--in production fees for Love & War. Even in Hollywood, this payout is high. Normal fees for high- end writer-producers range from $50,000 to $75,000 per episode. English's class consciousness seems to expand the further she gets from blue-collar technical types, and the closer she gets to writers, actors and directors represented by the Directors Guild of America, Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild. These so-called above-the-line em- ployees account for a production's biggest expenses. Wage costs of tech- nicians like those replaced by English have gone up 4% on average annually since 1989, according to Doering, while nonwage costs for these people dropped 20%. In the same period, rates paid to the most successful writ- ers and directors (who can command above union scale) have escalated an estimated 40% to 50%. ''The creative types are what's driv- ing costs so high,'' says one Holly- wood executive. ''To have a top- notch writer exclusive for three years, you might have to guarantee them $3 million to $4 million.'' But tackling this part of the overhead might ruin English's reputation around Tinsel- town as a friend of the oppressed. English, who declined to speak to FORBES, has portrayed Love and War Productions as a struggling indepen- dent. True, she and her husband struck out on their own just last year, after having worked for Warner Bros., for which they produced Murphy Brown. But Shukov-sky and English are hardly starving. Any expenses over the more than $600,000 in estimated licensing fees that CBS agreed to pay the company per episode will be paid by the network in the form of a loan that CBS either will get back from English when the show goes into syndication or will likely forgive if syndication doesn't happen. This is a very sweet, no-risk deal for English. English is used to pleading poverty. In interviews with other journalists, she insists that Vice President Quayle is wrong to call her part of the ''cul- tural elite'' that runs the entertain- ment business, making much of her blue-collar upbringing in Buffalo and her public school education. A shrewd entertainer, English un- derstands that among Hollywood's elite, liberal lines play better than conservative ones. As reported, when she received an Emmy award in Sep- tember for Murphy Brown, she told the audience: ''As Murphy said: 'I could not possibly do a worse job raising my kid alone than the Reagans did with theirs.''' But if English becomes known as a union-buster in Burbank, how will she be able to hold up her head at Spago  "This information is the property of Forbes, Inc., ACC takes no responsibility for its content, or the actions of any individual or institution, predicated on the information herin. Forbes Subscriptions are available to students and faculty members at the student/educator rate of $33 for one year, 27 issues. Regularly priced $52. Information about print subscriptions may be had by calling 1-800-888-9896. For further information about the electronic version of Forbes, contact usa@AmeriCast.COM"