Why Best Week Ever and The Soup are still on the air

In the past few days a bunch of people have come here to find out why The Soup and Best Week Ever are still on the air during the strike. I posted that query here and got some good answers, but nothing definitive. The question was still bugging the hell out of me. Because we'd established that they were nonsig shows, but I know BWE ever has union members on its staff. How does that work?

So I emailed Paul F. Tompkins from BWE - 'cuz we're tight like that - and asked him myself.

Here was his response:

I don't know about The Soup, but yes, BWE is a non-Guild show. I myself am a WGA member, but can do the show because a) it's an interview format, where I am not writing in advance, I am improvising in response to questions and b) if that IS considered writing, according to the Guild, performers are allowed to write for themselves. This is how Letterman and Carson were able to do shows during the last big strike. As far as the people who put the shows together, that's another matter. I would say it's probably all right because shows like BWE and The Soup are not the types of shows that are in question-- there's no real resale of them and no residuals.

I would NEVER want to do anything that went against the cause for which we are striking. Hope this eases your mind.

Paul