Will showrunners cross the picket line?

Hollywood Insider has learned that a significant number of showrunners — i.e. the writer-producers who are responsible for many of the series in primetime today — quietly met on Saturday, Nov. 3 for what one participant described as a "spirited" discussion about the impending strike. At issue: whether hyphenates such as themselves should respect WGA wishes to honor picket lines and stay away from their sets. But doing so places a particularly large burden on showrunners from struggling first-year shows. Save early hits like ABC's Private Practice and CBS' Big Bang Theory (both of which have already received full-season pickups) many of the freshman series in primetime today — Cane and Big Shots, to name a few — are already in danger of cancellation and can't afford any kind of production delay or work stoppage.

Showrunners like the one Hollywood Insider spoke to about the meeting also realize the guild can't discipline a hyphenate for performing non-writing producer duties like cutting episodes for time and making changes in stage directions (the lettered bullet points in showrunners' contracts known in Hollywood as "A through H" services). And the pressure to continue working is everywhere in Hollywood: ABC Studios, in particular, distributed a memo Oct. 30 to writer-producers saying "you must perform your showrunner and/or producer services pursuant to your ... agreement with the studio" and reminding them that "showrunners have specifically protected status under federal law, which prevents the WGA from disciplining you from performing non-writing producing services... even during a WGA strike."

Yet according to the participant, many of the attendees at Saturday's showrunner meeting planned to honor the picket lines, particularly since it would send a bad message to Teamsters (the men and women who drive the production trucks and work as location scouts who have vowed to honor the strike) if they continue working in some capacity.

There is still a chance a strike could be avoided — or at least postponed — if today's 11th hour negotiation session that was by the federal mediator proves fruitful.