WGA West President Chris Keyser Shopping Drama Series Produced By Endeavor Content

The Association of Talent Agents just proposed a June 7 meeting between the full negotiating committees of WGA and ATA to restart talks on a new franchise agreement. The date may create a scheduling conflict for WGA-Agency Agreement Negotiating Committee co-chair Chris Keyser, also the president of WGA West.

I have learned that the Party of Five co-creator is taking out a drama series project with Endeavor Content, the production company affiliated with talent agency WME. I have learned that he and Endeavor Content have set up June 4-June 7 pitch meetings at Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Apple and Showtime for the show, called The State of Affairs. I hear Keyser is scheduled to be at the meetings.

Keyser is the writer/executive producer on the project, from Endeavor Content and Chernin Entertainment through the companies scripted drama venture. The potential series is based on Esther Perels book, described as a provocative look at relationships through the lens of infidelity.

Keyser, who was a client of CAA, is not breaking WGA rules as writers are allowed to pitch projects as long as their fired agents from agencies that had not signed the guilds new Code Of Conduct are not involved. But Keysers active collaboration with Endeavor Content in the middle of the WGAs standoff with the ATA over packaging fees and affiliated production companies is sure to raise eyebrows among the guilds rank and file. Endeavor Content is the biggest talent agency-affiliated studio whose rapid growth likely contributed to thrusting the issue into the spotlight of the WGA-ATA negotiations. Whats more, I hear The State of Affairs has a split package on it.

Deadline reached out to Keyser and the WGA for comment. Here is Keysers response in its entirety:

The Guild made a strategic decision to approve Endeavor Content as a Guild signatory company. Neither before the agency campaign began (when CAA made my deal with Chernin Entertainment) nor during the course of the campaign, has the Guild ever discouraged or forbidden any member from working with a so-called affiliated studio. Every additional studio that provides work for writers is a good thing. That includes Endeavor Content, WiiP and CCM. This is in no way antithetical to the goals of the agency campaign, which is entirely focused on eliminating the conflicted practices of the agencies themselves. In the case of WME, CAA and UTA that means disentangling them from their studios, but not eliminating the studios or decreasing their business. Remember, in 1962, MCA, the agency, went away, but Universal Studios remained. So, even if I could have anticipated this question, back when I made my deal, it would have raised no legal or ethical issues. No one is being asked or expected as some sort of gesture – to walk away from work at an affiliated studio. Our sole obligation in this struggle is to abide by WR 23 and fire our agencies until they resolve their conflicted practices. That we have all done as a united Guild.

The Writers Guild has made it clear that any deal proposal from ATA that involves agency-affiliated production outfits as well as packaging is a non-starter, and Endeavor Content, in its current form, is agency-affiliated. Keyser has been one of the faces of the guilds campaign to ban the two practices, and recently spoke about them in a video address to the membership.

“We had no choice but to fight back—against packaging fees and against the looming threat of affiliated studios, where our representatives are also our bosses,” he said.

“This is the truth about the big four agencies: they do not, by-and-large, function the way we think of agencies functioning. They are not in the individual client service business—not for most of us. They are, instead, like mega-pods. At this point, they are non-writing executive producers on every television show that is made. They dont announce themselves as that. But thats what they are. They attach themselves to every show through the access point of their package-able element, usually us. Then they take a fee on every episode and a large piece of the backend. Their client lists are just a cost of doing business—a list of people who are—or who may someday—create a show on which they can be a producer.”

“The affiliated studios are, if anything, more pernicious. Though some of us make good deals with them, that is not the point. They could instead make those good deals with us as independent studios. The agencies have created studios because they believe they will be more profitable than the traditional agency business itself. Read More – Source

Deadline