TV Series Pickups Favor AFTRA 5 to 1

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 03:37 AM PDT

Several months ago, we learned that pilot season this year was 94% AFTRA (or 87% by some calculations), a complete 180 from its usual 90% SAG. That didn’t look good for SAG, but a few Membership First hardliners urged us to wait and see how the all-important series pickups turned out.

Not so well, we now know—at least, not so well from a SAG perspective. The AP is reporting that 25 out of 30 shows picked up by broadcast networks this spring were AFTRA and just five were SAG. That’s about 83% AFTRA to 17% SAG—not much better for SAG than the pilot numbers. In contrast, last year’s figures, according to the AP, were 3 AFTRA and 19 SAG, i.e., 14% AFTRA and 86% SAG. In other words, a complete 180.

I am the first to admit that I break out in a cold sweat when I know that the Indians biggest game could ride on the shoulder of one Mr. Paul Byrd. I found this article today about “Birdie” and his 180. Enjoy -

“I thought he was in a cult. I’m like, ‘This guy is way too into it. Like, what’s wrong here? This guy is psycho.’ But he challenged me to read the Bible,” Paul says.

“So I started to read the Bible, and it was like somebody was pursuing me. I couldn’t get God and Jesus off my heart, and I found out the Gospel really is true,” Paul remembers.

The next three years, Paul wrestled with his faith. In 1991, he pitched Louisiana State to the college world series. But the victory didn’t satisfy him.

“Everybody was jumping around on the pile and things like that. I had a lot going on in my heart and I’m thinking, ‘We’ve just done what we’ve trained for my whole college career. What now? Is it this great? What now?’ “

Paul says God used the championship as a wake-up call. It was then he surrendered it all to God.

“It was a time when God used that in my life to say, ‘What’s important? What am I going to stand for?’ Five minutes before I die, am I going to care about the fact that I won the college world series or am I going to be worried about where I’m going?”

Paul is passionate about a number of things, and obviously baseball is just one of those. But ask him, and he’ll tell you about his true passion…

“I’ll be sitting in the outfield, and a guy will come over and start talking and … it will be the last guy on the team I think is interested. And it’s a guy that wants to know about the Gospel. He might be turned off with the church or turned off with religion, but he sees something different in relationship, and he wants to know about that. It’s very powerful for me when I see people’s hearts turn to God. Man, it fires me up like nothing else,” he says.

See the entire article on the 700 Club site – HERE