As someone working in scripted TV production…holy shit, this is bad news: NBC is replacing its entire 10pm hour with a nightly prime-time hour of Jay Leno.

If you look purely at the numbers, it absolutely makes sense for fourth-place NBC, whose ratings have completely tanked this year due to the fact that they put on some atrocious, atrocious television shows this fall, and who just completely gutted the ranks of their execs:

Though Mr. Leno will command an enormous salary, probably more than $30 million a year, the cost of his show will be a fraction of what a network pays for dramas at 10 p.m. Those average about $3 million an episode. That adds up to $15 million a week to fill the 10 p.m. hour. Mr. Leno’s show is expected to cost less than $2 million a week.

So let’s run some math here. Leno does about 46 weeks worth of shows, and at $2 mil a week that’s about $92 mil a year. Scripted shows do 22 episodes each, at 5 per week and $3 mil apiece that’s $330 mil a year. This change stands to save NBC Universal $238 million annually.

Let me repeat that: Paying Jay Leno $30 million a year will save NBC Universal almost a quarter billion dollars a year.

And for those of us on the scripted side of things, where network work has already been getting squeezed out by cheaper reality shows, this is a HUGE blow. Work has already been slowing because of the recession and the impending SAG strike.

For NBC to summarily declare they’re going to give up 5 hours a week is a brutal addition to the litany of problems facing everyone who works in scripted television. There are already too many people and not enough work to go around, and this is just going to make it infinitely worse.

I’m hopeful that cable’s going to continue to pick up the slack, but cable shows are, unfortunately, usually quite a bit less stable employment than network. Cable shows do 13-15 episodes in a normal season, or about 5-7 months worth of work. Networks shoot 22-24, or about 9-10 months worth of work.

Being on a good show on a network is almost like having a real job: If you’re in the office, you work almost year-round. If you’re in cable, you tend to bounce more from show to show, and it’s harder to form a team because everyone’s getting rotated into different schedules.

Anyway, we’ll see what happens. The common thread I’m finding in most commentary is that it’s a plan born of desperation on the part of NBC, but it brings to mind one of my favorite quotes from my favorite movie of all time, The Great Escape:

Now why didn’t anyone think of that before? It’s so stupid, it’s positively brilliant!

Last week: 6 days, somewhere between 75-80 hours (I pretty much lost count).

Today: 13 hours, and lost my boss halfway through the day so I got to pull double-duty for most of the afternoon. Tomorrow: Likely even more ridiculous.

I’m bloody exhausted, but I will say: I’m glad I’ve been WAY too busy to watch the economy implode. I’d probably be a lot more worried about it if I had a better grasp on what in the fuck is going on.

…Where there are no electronic things I can break or have crap out on me.

The fucking hard drive on the laptop I rented while mine’s getting fixed up and died on me when I got back from work.

I ran disk utility off my Leopard install disk (a way you can sometimes fix problems with a pesky drive), and it was like the laptop’s drive wasn’t even there.

If, somehow, the shop I rented from decides this is my fault, I’m out a $1500 deposit on top of everything else. It’s a low level possibility, but the way my tech karma’s been fucking with me lately, I wouldn’t be surprised.

I’m starting to think I should have just sucked it up and bought a new computer. At least then, among other things, I wouldn’t be typing this on my crackberry.

As word spreads over the interwebs that the DGA has cut a deal with the studios, I’ve already had several people ask me if this is going to end the Writer’s strike.

Frankly, I doubt it, and I base that doubt on the following key analytical paragraph from this New York Times story about the deal:

Over all, the agreement was designed to reflect the directors’ belief, bolstered by an independent study of industry economics, that digital media will render the companies a negligible amount of revenue during the life of the contract, and will become significant only after 2010.

Here’s where the fundamental strategies of the DGA and WGA differ: The DGA is fighting like it’s negotiating for the next three years, and only the next three years. The WGA is fighting like it’s negotiating for a rate for the forseeable future.

Frankly, given how bad the unions have gotten screwed on the “oh, we’ll raise the rate once we start making some money” concept before, I think the writers are right and the directors are being ludicrously short-sighted.

Now supposedly, the directors have had a clause written into the contract that the numbers they’re agreeing to now aren’t setting a precedent for the next negotiation in 2010-11, but…they’re still setting a precedent.

Remember, writers have gotten the same 4 cent per VHS/DVD residual (and actors and directors have had similar numbers that have never been adjusted) since the early 80’s, with no adjustments for either inflation or the dramatically declining cost of production, despite assurances from the studios when the deal was first struck that it would not be precedent-setting.

The DGA is putting an awful lot of trust in the studios to stand by their word and not fuck around during the next negotiation, and I don’t know that the studios have done a damn thing to earn it.

Obviously, we’ll have to see how the numbers play out and how the inevitable battle between the DGA and WGA in the press goes over the next few days, but I fear this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

I hope to god I’m wrong.

My industry is so completely and totally doomed.

I am going to ignore the protests of Mr. Cranky Ankle and have a nice stiff glass of bourbon or three.

This is getting ridiculously ugly very quickly. When even Variety is this pessimistic this early in the ballgame, we’re all fucked.

Someone at the WGA made the extremely smart move of making a fairly simple video explaining their entirely rational demands on the internet residuals, which you should watch if you’ve found my explanations of the issues lacking.

The problem is that the studios feel compelled to try and cling to every penny they can, even as they issue statements to Wall Street trumpeting the potential gold mine in internet content delivery.

It’s the ultimate nightmare for people who work in Production: Both sides are utterly convinced they’re right, and they’re both digging in deep.

My worst fear during the run-up to this week was a six month strike, but as details trickle out about how horribly the talks broke down on Sunday, it sounds like there’s a distinct possibility that it might last even longer than that.

Meanwhile, the first of my friends (or at least those friends not amongst the picketers) are probably going to get laid off at the end of this week, if not earlier.

This just sucks.

Update: Deadline Hollywood posted a picture of almost our whole writing staff (there’s a couple people I don’t see, but I think some are blocked by the signs of the people in front), plus a couple of SAG friends of the staff who are out picketing with them, from the picket line at Fox yesterday.

Back from San Diego, and sadly, it appears we’re headed down the rabbit hole for real.

I’m at least modestly heartened to hear that the sides talked for over eight hours (though apparently talks collapsed around 10). I fully expected at least one if not both sides to walk out telling the other side to go fuck themselves after a couple of hours.

I really hope something gets pounded out in the next week or two, because I fear if this isn’t settled very quickly, it’s going to go for several months.

In the meantime, these next couple of weeks should be awfully fun.

It’s on like Donkey Kong, kids. Writers announce tomorrow when they’re officially going to start picketing. In all likelihood I’m going to have to cross my first picket line on Monday, something I’m not at all happy about.

But I need this job and especially the health insurance it provides, so I’ll drive past my picketing friends on Monday, go into the office, and try to figure out what the hell to do from there.

And I hope to hell they’ll understand.

Sorry to be on all-strike, all the time mode, but really, this is pretty much the future of the industry I work in on the line here.

Why do I think it’s going to get worse? The following two lines from the AMPTP’s statement:

In referring to DVDs, we include not only traditional DVDs, but also electronic sell-through — i.e., permanent downloads. As you know, we believe that electronic sell-through is synonymous with DVD.

This, THIS, is the flagrantly insane statement that the producers make on the last day before the deal expires.

Anyone who knows a goddamn thing about digital distribution knows that trying to make DVDs and downloads equivalent is utterly ridiculous.

We’re all doomed.