TV legend Norman Lear on a lifetime of ‘experience’; Actors approve deal
The Business
KCRW
4.5 • 699 Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2023
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
SAG-AFTRA members ratify a three-year contract with studios. Plus, actors promote work post-strike, studios license content, and streamers bundle services.
Then, Kim Masters revisits a 2014 conversation with legendary television producer Norman Lear, who died Dec. 5 at the age of 101. The force behind TV shows like All in the Family, Maude, Good Times and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, among many others, Lear discusses his memoir Even This I Get to Experience, and shares stories about how he got his first job in television and the line that almost caused CBS to pull the plug on All in the Family.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business. |
| 0:05.0 | I could have lived without that line. The episode would have lived without that line. |
| 0:10.2 | But I knew that if I lost that, the next silly battle would be easier to lose. |
| 0:15.7 | Television icon Norman Lear wrote sitcoms that tackled real issues, rape, abortion, race relations. |
| 0:22.4 | When the network wanted him to drop a potentially controversial line, he just said no. |
| 0:27.4 | This week we revisit a conversation with Lear who passed away December 5th at 101 years old. |
| 0:33.5 | He talked about a few lifetimes worth of adventures in film and television and his 2014 memoir. |
| 0:39.8 | Even this I get to experience. |
| 0:42.5 | We'll listen to the words and wisdom of Norman Lear, but first we banter. |
| 0:46.9 | Stick around. It's the business from KCRW. |
| 0:51.3 | I am joined by my partner in banter, Matt Bellany. Hello, Matt. |
| 0:55.3 | Hi there. |
| 0:56.1 | So SAG after members voted to ratify the settlement with the studios. They have a new three-year deal, |
| 1:01.2 | which, well, two and a half years because it took so long to get there, which they have said is a |
| 1:05.2 | billion-dollar historic deal. As you well know, the issue that was causing the most chatter was AI and did the Guild go |
| 1:13.6 | far enough to get what was needed to protect actors from this new and rapidly developing |
| 1:18.6 | technology. Notwithstanding that back and forth, which was seemingly robust, they almost got 80% |
| 1:25.6 | to vote in favor of it. I'll mention that I'm a SAG after member in a different |
| 1:29.3 | unit, and I could have but did not vote because I'm not taking part in that stuff as a reporter. |
| 1:34.5 | But close to 80% I think was pretty good, huh? |
| 1:37.3 | Yeah, and it's about what was expected. You know, I thought it would be between 75 and 85 and, you know, slightly lower than you might have seen if this were |
| 1:46.3 | a agreement that did not have some pretty well-organized opposition to it. |
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