UK comedy writers asked not to break US strike

The Writers' Guild of Great Britain has urged its comedy writers not to supply material to American television shows, in support of the recent writers strike. The WGGB claim that giving material would only result in little pay for British writers and would have severe damaging effects to their US counterparts.

The strike, which started on Monday over pay from DVD sales, has affected several US comedy shows, some of which are shown in Britain. Amongst the shows which have been affected to date are The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (More4), Family Guy (BBC Three), Ugly Betty (Channel 4), and the American version of The Office (ITV2).

WGGB chairman Bernie Corbett said, "We are contacting the major UK broadcasters and producers, and the UK Film Council, asking them not to dump UK material into the US market, and not to dress up American projects to look as though they are British. We strongly advise our members not to engage in strikebreaking, and on top of that if we learn of any cases of strikebreaking either by WGGB members or non-members, we will not hesitate to inform the WGA so that they can follow it up according to their rules."

Unlike the US, UK writers have been able to negotiate terms over royalty payments regarding DVDs, and downloads over the internet and to mobile phones.