What the reality show writers want

You may have read about the meeting on Tuesday of network executives that was interrupted by reality TV writers seeking recognition. That story reminded me of a conversation I had this summer at a cocktail reception for TV critics organized by the Writers Guild-West.

I bumped into a guy named Chuck Tately. Back in the day he used to write sitcoms. About seven years ago that well ran dry; now he's a "producer" on reality shows. In reality, though, he's a writer, one of a dozen or so invited by the guild to mingle with the critics that afternoon to raise awareness about what exactly it was they did on those shows. What does it mean to script the unscripted? How hard does a reality writer work compared with a scripted-show writer? And how should they be compensated vis-a-vis the people who write the dialogue for shows with actors on them?

Chuck was very good on these topics. I'd intended to use this audio on my first TV Barn Podcast this summer, but that was before I produced it and realized I sound terrible doing voiceover. (I'm going to try doing one again at January critics' tour, but this time I'm going to do my interviews verité-style -- you know, the old "My name is Chuck Tately and I" etc. -- so I can subtract myself from the finished product.)

Anyway, here's an edited version of our Q-and-A, made timely by this week's news:

Download ChuckTately.mp3 (5:41, 2.6MB)