Word: shows
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...strike is testing the patience of TV viewers. With spring only a month old, summer reruns are already beginning for many prime-time shows as the supply of original programs runs out. The networks have dropped 22 scheduled episodes in all, including the season's last new episodes of L.A. Law and The Cosby Show. Moonlighting scrapped its special-effects finale, some ten minutes of which was to be broadcast in 3-D. That has left one of its sponsors, Coca- Cola, with 40 million unused pairs of 3-D eyeglasses it had planned to distribute...
...central dispute between writers and producers is over syndication residuals for one-hour shows, the payments made to writers each time a network television show appears on an independent station. Writers now receive a flat fee of $16,000 for the first six syndicated reruns, but producers want to pay ! them according to a formula that takes into account total income from a show's sale. Writers say that method would significantly cut their average income, though producers deny this would happen...
...awfully good. Bochco, 44, a deceptively laid-back Californian with a fierce determination to shatter TV's familiar formulas, is on a roll. L.A. Law, his designer drama about life in the legal fast lane, is about to end its second season on NBC as the highest- rated dramatic show on TV's highest-rated network. Hooperman, starring John Ritter as a sensitive San Francisco cop, is one of the season's top-rated new series and an ambitious pioneer of TV's newest form, the "dramedy." A potential spin-off is already in the works, focusing on a dwarf...
That stamp, first seen in his groundbreaking police show Hill Street Blues, has changed the face of TV. Unlike simplistic TV dramas of the past, Bochco shows typically feature a medley of interwoven plots and characters. They grapple with tough social issues, yet leap from scenes of intense drama to raucous comedy. They relentlessly push network standards of good taste, often with a schoolboy penchant for gross-out humor and sexual fetishes. "Steve has . always been one to break the rules," says former NBC Chairman Grant Tinker. "He does it more cleverly, even diabolically, than anyone else. He rocks...
That self-assurance -- some call it arrogance -- has contributed to professional rifts. In March 1985, at the end of Hill Street's fifth season, Bochco was fired as executive producer after he resisted efforts by MTM Enterprises to reduce the show's high production costs. And late last year Bochco became embroiled in a bitter feud with Terry Louise Fisher, his creative partner on both L.A. Law and Hooperman. After negotiations to take over Bochco's job as executive producer of L.A. Law next season went awry, Fisher was barred from the show's set. She responded with...