Los Angeles, CA – The Directors Guild of America announced today that late script delivery, an issue that undermines the quality of programs and adds to the financial cost of episodic television, has improved significantly in single-camera one-hour dramatic television in the most-recently completed 2003-04 television season.
The DGA's script tracking study revealed that the percentage of scripts delivered on-time in 2003-04 increased to 61% of all scripts, up from the 47% of on-time scripts in the 2002-03 season – representing a 30% increase in the proportion of scripts delivered on-time. In addition, the number of scripts delivered more than two days late has been reduced by almost 50%, with only 23% of all scripts delivered two or more days late in 2003-04, as compared to 41% in 2002-03. The number of scripts delivered exceptionally late (5-15 days) has also declined significantly, from 20% of all scripts in 2002-03 to just 8% of all scripts in 2003-04.
"Last season, more than half of all scripts in episodic television were arriving to directors late – in some cases, not until the first day of shooting – leaving little or no time for directors to do the preparatory work necessary to create well-crafted episodes," according to Rod Holcomb, chair of DGA's television committee. "This has been a real effort on everyone's part, and the improved data reflects that by jointly addressing this problem, the DGA, the networks and the studios were able to affect significant change in less than two years – getting many more on-time scripts into the hands of directors, leading to higher quality and lower cost episodes."
Eight series, Star Trek Enterprise, Law & Order, The District, JAG, Judging Amy, She Spies, Hack and Strong Medicine, delivered 100% of their scripts on time in 2003-04, representing a substantial improvement in their performance. Last season, only one show, Six Feet Under, delivered all its scripts on time. Eleven series showed substantial improvement (defined as a more than 20% increase in timely script delivery): 24, Alias, Angel, The District, ER, The Guardian, Hack, JAG, Judging Amy, Law & Order, Third Watch, and West Wing. Of those seven, three increased more than 40% and two increased their on-time script delivery by 60% or more.
CBS, Fox, Sony, Touchstone, Universal and Warner Bros. all showed substantial improvement in delivering timely scripts in the 2003-04 season. MGM maintained its 100% script delivery record.
98% of the scripts delivered 7-10 days late were from just two shows: Ed and Gilmore Girls. Neither Ed nor Gilmore Girls delivered a single script on time, and in the case of Gilmore Girls, 100% of the scripts were delivered more than 6 days late. Five other shows - Charmed, Everwood, Law & Order SVU, NYPD Blue, and The Practice – also had dismal script delivery performance, delivering more than 70% of their scripts late. "Although there has been a significant improvement in timely script delivery overall, there are still too many shows that disregard both the creative impact on show quality and the financial impact of late script delivery to the bottom line," according to Holcomb.
Of the 770 episodes studied in 2003-2004, 470 (61%) were on time – while 300 (39%) were late from one to ten days. A further breakdown of the data reveals that 123 scripts were late by one day, 116 scripts were late by two to four days, and 61 scripts were late by five or more days. In comparison, of the 642 episodes tracked in the 2002-03 season, 303 (47%) were on-time, while 339 (53%) were delivered late. 80 scripts were late by one day, 133 were late by 2-4 days and 126 were late by five or more days.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and the directors agreed during the last round of negotiations to take an industry wide approach to tackle and solve this problem, which affects every aspect of single-camera production. To determine the extent of the problem, the studios agreed to provide the DGA with script delivery tracking information beginning in the last quarter of 2002 – and that data, which covered a partial programming season, proved the directors' earlier estimate to be on the mark. In addition, members of the Guild's Creative Rights Committee who direct single-camera shows have conducted a series of meetings to discuss with showrunners and producers how to achieve timely script delivery.
