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MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR: CHANGING TIMES
The Caucus Journal - Spring 2008
Chairman's Report
Dennis Doty, Caucus Chair
Every generation seems to echo the words, “Times are Changing”. Well, in our business and in our organization, it's still true today.
In January the Caucus elected a new slate of officers and Steering Committee. As the new Caucus Chair, I have the honor and big task to try filling the very large shoes of our outgoing Chair Vin di Bona. We all thank Vin for his leadership and generosity these past four years. I congratulate all of our incoming Steering Committee members and especially the new officers -- Co-Chairs Bill Blinn, Lionel Chetwynd and Vin di Bona, Secretary Herman Rush and Treasure John Moffitt. I thank Chuck Fries for his continued wise guidance and support which remains invaluable to us all as well as the work of our Administrator Penny Reiger and Counsel Ed Blau. Last but never least we are all in debt to Roger Gimbel who as Editor of the Caucus Journal has kept this vital voice of our organization alive and well over the years. Our Annual Caucus Awards Dinner, our American Spirit Awards Dinner, our Caucus Entertainment Night event, the Caucus Foundation and our Caucus Panels, which look into various facets of our ever changing business, have grown in size and importance to our membership and our fellow workers in the creative community.
Thirty Four years ago a group of television legends including Bob Cinader, George Eckstein, William Froug, James Komack, Norman Lear, Richard Levinson, John Mantley, Aaron Ruben, Bill Sackheim, Aaron Spelling and Leonard Stern met at a Chinese restaurant across from Universal and formed what they called “The Hyphenate Lobby” or as some of them called themselves, Twelve Angry Men. In short order they moved their meetings to a better restaurant and they also gave a more formal name for their small organization, “The Caucus for Producers, Writers and Directors”. That was 1974 and they created programming for the three networks that made up television. They were dedicated to quality television and their ability to do their best to do so in the market place of their time. That was their Mission.
How some things have changed. Today our organization has expanded to over one hundred forty members and now we welcome our producer, writer and director colleagues who work in the New Media.
Today our members are still in the business of creating programming -- except now there are four commercial networks and hundreds of basic and pay cable channels. To add to this change, the new media in the internet and computer age have brought us all to a new era of entertainment and information choices, too many to number. To add to the new age change we have Tivo / DVR's to shake up the way people use their TV's. Viewers have vastly more choices of what to watch and when to watch those choices.
But the more things seem to change, the more they can seem the same. Good drama is still good drama and the same for good comedy. Big Variety TV may have become big Reality TV and big quiz and game shows may have become shows like “Deal or No Deal”. One change, the near demise of the Made to TV Movie is a sad note. The days of some one hundred MOW's and Mini Series made for commercial network television are all but gone. The overall quality of what the network audience is viewing has not been improved by this change. But again thanks to cable, there are still a much smaller number of movies and limited series available to viewers who get those cable channels.
With these times we see a much changed economy. There are many fewer independent producers making programs in exchange for more “work for hire” and more “controls” from above in the programming we make. We now see “squeezed” end credits, more commercial time taken from each hour's program content and pop-up promos running under the programs when they do return from commercial breaks. This and more is all largely due to today's corporate growing vertical integration; more concentration of control and ownership. Is the viewer better off with all these changes? They will ultimately be the best judge.
Those of us in the Caucus will continue to work attempting to elevate the quality of television and protect and promote our artistic rights to do so and to point out and work to right any corporate or government actions that are contrary to this mission. One thing all of us in the Caucus share is a love of a good challenge and a love of our business and what we do.
Today whether we watch shows on a big HD Flat Screen, a computer screen or even a hand phone screen, what we are looking at is still program content and whatever that content is, that is what we producers, writers and directors in the Caucus still endeavor to create to the very best of our abilities.
So, while it may have expanded over the years, our basic Mission is still the same as it was in 1974 when our twelve founders had that first meeting at the Chinese restaurant. We all owe them a big debt of gratitude. Some things do never change.
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