Is American TV about to be outsourced?

Far from the WGA picket lines, there’s a place where top-tier screenwriters are, in theory, still free to work on movies backed by the U.S. studios. It’s called the United Kingdom. The WGA has no jurisdiction here. But the question worrying producers, agents and studio execs in London is whether local writers can (or should) work on projects involving U.S. partners. The subject is so delicate that no one will discuss it on the record. Indeed, some would prefer that the subject not be raised publicly at all for fear of drawing the WGA’s attention to the gray area in which the U.K. biz operates. The Writers Guild of Great Britain has pitched in with its own opinion. “We are contacting the major U.K. broadcasters and producers, and the U.K. Film Council, asking them not to dump U.K. material into the U.S. market and not to dress up American projects to look as though they are British,” said general secretary Bernie Corbett. “Strike-breaking would at best be a short-term payday but would have a devastating long-term effect on a writer’s U.S. career.”