Conan Will Pay Staffers Out of Own Pocket;
Writers Offered ‘New Economic Partnership’

Following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Late Night talk show host Conan O’Brien will pay his non-writing staffers their salary out of his own pocket. The staffers face layoffs after Friday, due to the ongoing writers strike.

NBC, which owns Late Night, has been picking up the tab (along with the salaries of non-writing staff from The Tonight Show), which it had promised to do through the end of November. There is a chance NBC will continue to pay staffers, but that has not been announced.

If it does fall to Conan, a Writers Guild of America (WGA) member, to pay his people out-of-pocket, it may be a short bridge loan (I know, it’s not a loan – work with me here!). The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) Thursday presented striking writers with a new proposal, dubbed the New Economic Partnership.

According to an Associated Press report and AMPTP statement, the three-year Partnership deal is said to be worth more than “$130 million in additional compensation above and beyond the more than $1.3 billion writers already receive each year.”

The WGA suggested the deal was just a “massive rollback,” and presented its $151 million deal to the AMPTP. In a statement, the WGA said the producers' proposal “only dealt with advertising-supported programs streamed for free and jurisdiction over shows created for the Web.”

The WGA’s deal is allegedly “a little over a 3 percent increase in writer earnings each year.” Company revenues (the AMPTP) are projected to grow at a rate of 10 percent.