TV Hot Spot: News

DeGeneres Cancels New York Shows

Post by: Sal

Ellen DeGeneres has scrapped plans to tape her daytime talk show in New York next week following pressure from striking writers.

The comic, who's been at the center of a controversy over her return to work on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" during the strike, was to have taped shows in New York on Nov. 19 and 20. However, the Writers Guild of America, East pledged to protest her appearance and disrupt any elements of the show that took place outside the studio.

That led to the scrapping of the appearance, according to reports in Deadline Hollywood Daily and The Hollywood Reporter. Instead of taping the shows in New York, DeGeneres will work out of her usual digs at NBC Studios in Burbank.

"We're delighted that Ellen DeGeneres has decided not to come to New York to tape her program," Michael Winship, president of WGA, East, says in a statement. "She knows that the Writers Guild East would have been there to protest her lack of solidarity, not only with her guild writing staff but all the striking members of the Writers Guild, of which she is a member."

DeGeneres is a member of both the Writers Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, one of Hollywood's two performers' unions. Both AFTRA and Telepictures, which produces her talk show, have said the comedian is legally required to tape shows under the union's no-strike clause and her contract to keep turning out episodes to the local stations that air them.

She sat out the first day of the strike on Nov. 5, but returned to work the next day, citing concern for the other members of the show's crew.

Take Care,

Sal