The Writers Guild of America strike is generating some aggressive legal moves by the television studios. The New York Times said that 20th century Fox and CBS Paramount have sent breach-of-contract letters to the show runners on their current series who stopped doing their production duties when they went on strike with other television writers.

Calling the move an escalation of hardball tactics, the Times reported that the studios had expected the runners to keep working on their shows in a non-writing capacity. That would be a big “no,” apparently. So the studios told the runners that they wouldn’t be paid as producers either if they failed to show up for work.

By now you may wonder: what’s a runner. Here’s the definition provided by the Times: As executive producers on the programs that they often created, show runners have many duties in addition to writing, including casting, overseeing sound mixing and editing footage into 22- or 44-minute television episodes.

Keep an eye on:

• Walt Disney reported a 12 percent rise in quarterly profit, driven by its television networks and U.S. theme parks, but revenue slightly missed Wall Street’s target. (Reuters)
• California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, best known in Hollywood for playing the “Terminator,” said he has assumed an unspecified backstage role to bring an end to the screenwriters strike. (Reuters)
• The New York Post’s Page Six gossip column is quickly hiring staffers to launch an ambitious Web site by year’s end, in the wake of the popularity of TMZ.com. TMZ notched 10.5 million unique U.S. visitors in September, making its No. 5 among all news sites, and besting all non-portals save for CNN and MSNBC. (BusinessWeek )
• The next generation DVD war — Blu-ray vs. HD DVD — is at a “stalemate,” Sony Corp CEO Howard Stringer said. (AP via Yahoo)

(Photo: Reuters)