For SAG show, cable has its virtues

There are two miracles involving the annual awards given out by the Screen Actors Guild.

One is that a labor union where people fight among themselves 364 days a year can somehow manage to look like one big happy family, even if it’s just for a day.

The second is that, after 12 years, the awards remain televised on cable -- especially because it’s now by choice.

It’s not lack of interest by the networks that keeps the SAG Awards on TNT. (The awards in January will be simulcast for the first time on TNT and sister channel TBS.)

CBS, in particular, has put out some serious feelers in the last couple of years to get the awards show, which officially kicked off Friday when nomination ballots were mailed out.

Ironically, the awards once aired on NBC, which dropped the ceremony after ratings tanked in 1997. That forced SAG to seek refuge in cable.

But now, moving the show back to a network has pretty much been a nonstarter for SAG because it would stand to lose the kind of control that it values.

In the early years, former SAG President Charlton Heston called them “a waste.” His argument was that being the umpteenth awards show on TV wasn’t what being in a union is all about. But Barry Gordon, then SAG’s president, defended the awards as a “morale booster” for actors.

Only in Hollywood would it take an awards show to overcome the day in, day out insecurity that comes from dealing with narrow-minded agents, studio executives, directors and producers.

Gordon says today that the show did succeed in getting more big-name stars involved with the union after a long, frustrating period in which many shunned it. During one show, Tom Hanks held up his SAG card to cheers from the audience.

Now the SAG Awards have renewed appeal because the show gets a big star turnout, which can translate into decent ratings.

Actors who last earned scale when Gerald Ford was president show up to say nice things about a union they barely pay attention to the rest of the year. It’s not exactly the same as being asked to walk a picket line. But many do offer heartfelt stories, recalling the thrill of earning a SAG card in between their restaurant shifts.

Highlighting the Jan. 29 show will be a lifetime achievement award for child actress icon Shirley Temple Black, who rarely ventures to Hollywood.

This guarantees the kind of big nostalgic, aren’t-we-special moment that award show producers and TV executives crave. SAG had barely found its first office space when Shirley Temple was the world’s biggest star in the mid-1930s.

Give the union credit for resisting the siren call of money, something that violates one of Hollywood’s basic rules.

The union’s last available filing with the U.S. Labor Department showed it receives $4.1 million in revenue from the show, while spending $2.9 million (SAG cautions that, because money from foreign telecasts and other such revenue sources flows in over time, those figures can fluctuate.)

That said, the figures appear to be close enough. People familiar with the financials of the SAG Awards confirm that the program typically earns the union somewhere north of $1 million and south of $2 million.

That’s a decent take, but nowhere near the low eight-digit dollars some believe could be earned by the ratings a network could provide.

The last SAG awards, on TNT, had an average of 3.4 million viewers. The Golden Globes drew an average 16.8 million viewers on NBC, while the granddaddy Oscars on ABC had 41.5 million.

By sticking with cable, SAG is not being forced to accommodate a network sweeps schedule, or having a network suit suggest that Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones give an award in a not-so-subtle plug for “Two and a Half Men.”

SAG spokesman Seth Oster also notes that the union uses the awards to not only celebrate the art of acting but also to promote awareness for the guild and union membership in general. Not exactly the kind of stuff that goes over well with network brass.

“Being on TNT has given SAG Awards a lot of creative freedom that one does not always enjoy on a major broadcast network,” Oster said. “That’s one of the driving reasons to continue the relationship.”

Right now, the cable channel executives pretty much limit their involvement to showing up at the after party. Which is how SAG wants it.

Signing for two more years with TNT, and now TBS, was an easy call. As with an actor, the biggest, best-paying role isn’t necessarily the most rewarding one.

Narrowing the search

Flush with funds from its Oscar telecasts and some well-timed investments, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is looking to build a world-class film museum in L.A.

Now comes word in the organization’s annual report that it has significantly narrowed the sites it is considering. According to the report: “After a search that ranged from Culver City to Exposition Park and from Beverly Hills to Burbank to downtown Los Angeles, the academy decided to locate its museum in a neighborhood that most members will have heard of: Hollywood!”

Oscar overtime

If you’ve ever wondered about the price of working long days and dealing with prima donna stars that comes with producing an Oscar telecast, here it is:

According to a “Related Party Transactions” footnote in the academy’s annual report, producer Gil Cates received a $330,000 honorarium for the 2005 telecast.

James Bates is deputy entertainment editor at the L. A. Times. He writes Behind the Screens as a regular column for the Envelope (theenvelope.latimes.com), a Times website devoted to Hollywood’s awards season. Send your ideas, comments, criticisms and tips to james.bates@latimes.com.