• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 13, 2007

Another business party at Chili's for "The Office"?  A new Nissan for a new hero on "Heroes"?  Don't count on too many product integrations after the writers' strike is over -- whenever that will be.

Try asking your picketing TV writer -- right now on line at the Chelsea Piers in New York City or Warner Bros. in Burbank -- how he would feel "working in" a new flavored coffee from Starbucks into the next script of "How I Met Your Mother"?  

Step back from the teeth and spit.

Increasingly militant writers may not have a few kind words for product integration these days, especially when they have bigger fish to fry- a better revenue cut from DVDs or a nice fat percentage off TV shows distributed on new digital platforms.

"Lost" executive producer-writer Damon Lindelof feels angry about the paltry paycheck he got from Walt Disney for a "Lost" DVD package that cost consumers $40  -- with Disney making about a 1 million sales and getting $40 million gross overall.

And what did Lindelof get? Some $7,100, he says. Sounds like a bad shake. Yet for Lindelof's other role, as an executive producer, he nabs way more money than that. He was making a point for writers.

No product integrations get into "Lost" - as there are few places our crash victims can legitimately run into a Walgreen's. That's not his issue -- but it is for others.

Money aside, many producer-writers are still frustrated about working products into scripts - even as the product integration business has been a sizable and stable part of the TV business now for almost 10 years.

Even executives at Ben Silverman's Reveille Productions for NBCs' "The Office" aren't high on the advertising activity.  Here's what "Office" show runner Grey Daniels told Esquire recently  -- in an article now made famous for what NBC Entertainment head Ben Silverman said about his business colleagues at the other networks:

"We only did product integration a few times," says Daniels. "And I found it pretty impossible to balance the desires of the ad agencies and their clients with the creative needs of the show, so we are not doing any more. Despite being disappointed, Ben supported the show in our decision."

That's some pretty big news -- especially for Silverman, the champion of incorporating big consumer products and services into TV shows for the likes of "Ugly Betty" and especially into his reality shows such as NBC's "The Biggest Loser."

Maybe all this might take care of itself - just give writers more money.  But even that might not be enough.  Overall sentiment suggests writers would rather not rework a script to shoehorn consumer products into TV shows -- no matter how "organic" that product is.

From the network's perspective, many product integrations give big national advertisers feel-good incentives to keep them buying traditional TV commercial time.

But writers never get any "feel-good" motivations in the first place .