Emmy Show Cuts a Deal With WGA

Although a writers’ strike has halted production of most prime-time entertainment fare, the pregnant pauses and meaningful glances of all 12 daytime network soap operas have continued without letup.

But according to the striking Writers Guild of America, there almost was a problem involving today’s Emmy Awards show to salute them because of host Phil Donahue.

Donahue, host of the syndicated “Donahue” talk show and an eight-time Emmy winner, differed on the extent of the problem.

But the end result was that Profile Productions, which is producing the Emmy show for CBS, signed an independent contract with the union Tuesday that covers the telecast, a guild spokesman said in response to a reporter’s query.

(Today’s ceremonies here will be broadcast in Southern California on a tape-delayed basis at 2 p.m. PDT on Channels 2 and 8.)

Executives at Profile Productions initially were reluctant to sign with the Writers Guild, a statement from the union said, “but they responded to the position of Phil Donahue that he would not work on a show that was not a guild signatory.”

However, Penny Rothheiser, a spokeswoman for the talk show star, quoted him as saying, “It never got that far.” Instead, she said, when he realized on Monday that the show had no guild contract, Donahue had expressed his concern to the producers.

None of the producers was available for interviews at press time Tuesday.

In a brief interview Monday, one co-producer, Helaine Taub, said the show’s executive producer, Bill Carruthers, had written a “minimal script” for the Emmy telecast.

She said she didn’t know if Carruthers’ work had the guild’s approval, but said “we always make our best effort to cooperate” with the unions involved in the Emmy telecast.

Best drama series nominees “Santa Barbara,” “General Hospital,” “The Young and the Restless,” “As the World Turns” and “All My Children” have continued in production, as have seven other network soaps, despite the writers’ strike, now in its 17th week. ABC has a total of five soaps, CBS four and NBC three.

Spokesmen for CBS and ABC decline to say who is writing the scripts for the weekday shows. NBC says its soap scripts are written by “non-guild writers.”

The world of daytime soaps, guild spokesman Martin Waldman said Tuesday, is one area where producers are “blatantly using” non-union writers, some of them members of the shows’ production staffs.

He added that the guild has “no evidence” that any of its members have broken ranks and resumed writing the shows. The guild strike against the three networks and motion picture and TV producers began on March 7.