Overlooked: The Writers' Strike and Its Effects on TV — Nov 7th 2007

By Dakota Smith

This week, a popular story on Propeller concerned Stephen Colbert dropping out of the presidential race. While that story prompted much discussion, our users seemed less concerned with a glaring fact: Colbert wasn't even on television anymore. After failing to come to an agreement on residual payments with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the Writers Guild of America commenced its strike on Monday. And the first shows to go into reruns were daily shows like the Colbert Report and Late Show With David Letterman.

Although some networks stockpiled extra scripts in anticipation of the strike, there wasn't enough material for others. Having run out of scripts, ABC's Desperate Housewives was scheduled to finish filming on Wednesday. Other shows, like Fox's Back to You, starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton, were canceled, according to the Associated Press.

During the last strike, which lasted for more than three months, the networks lost 10 percent of their audience; this time around, audiences have the Internet and YouTube to turn to, not to mention DVDs and video games. (Ironically, part of the rift between the WGA and the networks is over compensation for Internet streaming.)

To follow up on this story, and to see how the strike would impact certain shows, NewsQuake posed a few questions to a Los Angeles-based striking writer, who asked to remain anonymous.

What kinds of reruns will we be seeing over the next few months? Are there any surprise reruns the networks will bring back to retain their TV viewers?

I don't think we'll be seeing more reruns so much as new programming that you usually don't see in network prime time during the season. For instance, I heard that CBS may launch Big Brother in the spring rather than the summer. It wouldn't surprise me if some broadcast networks run the scripted programming of their sister cable networks. For instance, I could see Fox running FX's Damages and NBC running USA's Burn Notice.

Among your peers, what are writers doing with the extra time? Are they getting other jobs?

People are writing scripts "on spec," which they hope to sell when this is all over. Some people are delving into the novel or the tantric poetry cycle they always wanted to write. If this goes longer than three or four months, I think you'll see some people looking for day jobs. But writers are used to economic instability.

What kinds of writers are hardest hit by the strike? Which striking writers have it more cushy?

Nobody has it cushy. Anyone who was working on an in-production show last week is now on strike and not collecting a paycheck. Obviously, junior writers get paid less and have less of a cushion than more senior writers.

The networks may decide to use the strike as a way to cancel underperforming shows, right? Is there any other silver lining for the networks?

Networks don't need an excuse to cancel shows. But they may decide it's not worth keeping marginal performers, especially because in some cases they would still have to pay the cast without actually producing new episodes.

They can cut some overall deals via "force majeure" for some upper-level writers and producers, if they've decided those deals aren't worth the money. But that's outweighed by the amount of ad money they will have to return in an extended strike--advertisers buy time in advance for new programming.

Also, if the strike goes on long enough, American Idol will have even less competition than usual. That will be good for Fox.

Right, reality shows like Survivor will continue to air. How else will this affect reality programming?

An extended strike will see even more reality shows on the air, and the public may decide they've had their fill, much like what happened to sitcoms in the late Nineties.

A Los Angeles Times article mentioned that during the 1988 strike, Moonlighting never fully recovered. It was a successful show at the time. Which currently successful shows are in danger?

None in particular, though there is a danger that overall viewership of television will decline.

What sort of impact will the strike have on the type of shows that we're watching next fall?

It could have a big impact. Pilot scripts for the next season are usually turned in by writers around Thanksgiving. This year, many were rushed in anticipation of the strike, which means that the pool of shootable material might be smaller than usual. If the strike extends into the spring, then pilots will need to be shot and produced without the writers' involvement, which networks may balk on. Some networks, particularly Fox, anticipated the strike and ordered pilots straight to series to avoid this problem. But even these shows only have a few scripts ready to shoot (at most). Still, if the AMPTP offers the WGA a decent contract by January--and this is more likely, I suspect--then these issues will be avoided.

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