Showrunner Roma Roth, (far right), on the set of Sullivan’s Crossing.Jessie Redmond/CTV/Supplied
Sullivan’s Crossing executive producer and showrunner Roma Roth‘s expulsion from the Writers Guild of America over alleged strike-breaking activities during a 2023 strike will not affect the Canadian romantic TV drama, according to network CTV’s parent company Bell Media.
The Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) board’s recent decision to expel Roth for life was upheld by a membership vote on May 9 – but Canadian and international networks and production companies that partner with Roth’s own Reel World Management to make Sullivan’s Crossing in Nova Scotia are standing with her.
“There is no impact to the current third season of Sullivan’s Crossing as a result of the outcome of the WGA vote,” read a statement from Bell Media, sent via spokesperson Matthew Almeida to The Globe and Mail.
“As the commissioning broadcaster of Sullivan’s Crossing, produced alongside Fremantle, we value our partnership with Roma Roth and look forward to continuing to work with her.”
The CW, the American network that airs Sullivan’s Crossing (where season three begins this week), and Fremantle, a multinational producer and distributor of television shows based in England, had no further comment when contacted.
Sullivan’s Crossing – which is based on a book series by Robyn Carr and chronicles a romance between neurosurgeon Maggie Sullivan (Morgan Kohan) and handyman Cal Jones (Chad Michael Murray) – has been a hit for CTV, where it remains the network’s highest-rated Canadian drama in its third season, currently airing Sundays.
The show‘s first two seasons, meanwhile, were added to Netflix Canada on April 24, with both spending weeks on the streamer’s top 10 among Canadian subscribers.
The dispute about Roth’s activities dates back to the creation of the second season of the show, which also stars Gilmore Girls’ Scott Patterson and North of 60 legend Tom Jackson.
While the show was made under the jurisdiction of the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC), Roth is a member of both the WGAW and the WGC.
A waiver that Roth had obtained from the WGAW allowing her to perform writing services on Sullivan’s Crossing was terminated at the start of the strike in 2023.
After a disciplinary hearing was held earlier this year, a WGAW trial committee found, according to a document entitled “report and recommendations of trial committee” provided to The Globe and Mail, that she continued to perform “writing services” on the show “including but not limited to writing and re-writing story arcs, beats, and scripts.”
During that hearing and since, Roth has denied those allegations, saying she had only been working on the show as a non-writing executive producer during the four and a half-month strike. She has also argued that expulsion from the guild is an extreme response to the allegations.
In a statement, Roth said, “It is disappointing that WGA leadership decided to send out mass e-mails during the voting round to tip the scale in their favour and unfairly influence what was supposed to be a fair appeals process. This result will undoubtedly shape the standards by which the WGA and its board continues to operate moving forward.” (WGAW communications department did not respond to calls or emails from The Globe and Mail.)
Roth remains a member in good standing of the Writers Guild of Canada.
“The rules governing membership and discipline are specific to each individual guild,” Lisa Blanchette, director of communications of the WGC, explained in an e-mail.
Roth’s expulsion was largely due to the testimony of two WGC members who worked in the writers’ room on Sullivan’s Crossing in 2023.
According to the WGAW trial committee report, these were Ken Craw, a veteran screenwriter who has written for Heartland and Family Law, and Adam Pettle, another well-known screenwriter whose recent credits include Allegiance and Nurses.
“They testified that they were both employed as writers on season two of Sullivan’s Crossing and that they witnessed Ms. Roth performing writing services during the WGA strike, including breaking stories, revising outlines, and writing and rewriting scripts. They both testified that, during the WGA strike, they observed Ms. Roth participating in the Sullivan’s Crossing writers’ room.”
Pettle declined to comment for this article, and Craw did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment by deadline.
Beyond that pair’s testimony, the WGAW introduced as evidence a screenshot allegedly showing Roth participating in a Zoom writers’ room during the strike.
But, in a twist that seemed itself out of a primetime soap, Roth noted that her identical twin sister, Rosana Roth, was one of one of the WGC writers engaged to work in the writers’ room that season – and that she had stayed with her in Halifax and used her computer.
“Because the photo is hard to see, and my identical twin was part of the writers’ room, and no one who was in that writers’ room testified, there is no proof that the person in the picture was me,” she argued in a letter to guild members shared during the appeals process, which was also shared with The Globe and Mail.
Ultimately, the WGAW membership agreed with the board – which had found Craw and Pettle’s testimony credible – on expelling Roth. But the vote was close, with trade magazine Variety reporting last week that just 54 per cent of the voting membership of the WGAW voted to uphold decisions against Roth, and also another member, Australian Edward Drake.
Roth declined an interview about how the future of Sullivan’s Crossing might be affected by this union drama. A Zoom writers’ room for a fourth season of the show – yet to be financed – is currently underway.
