Hollywood Writers go on Strike!

[Che Guava]

Get your fill of Leno, Letterman and Stewart/Colbert now...!

Hollywood's writers go on strike

Hollywood screenwriters have gone on strike after talks with studio representatives failed to resolve a dispute over royalties.

The Writers Guild of America has asked its 12,000 members to stop working and set up picket lines.

Late-night television chat shows are likely to be the first productions to suffer with drama to follow if the strike drags on.

The last strike by screenwriters, in 1988, lasted a crippling 22 weeks.

The BBC's Peter Bowes in Los Angeles says the strike is expected to have a ripple effect throughout Los Angeles with businesses that rely on the entertainment industry being hit hard.

He says one estimate puts the potential cost to the city at $1bn.

Joke supply

Negotiators for the WGA and the studio representatives, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), held talks on Sunday night with a US federal mediator in Los Angeles.

WGA members have loaded up trucks with picket signs, bottled water and tables to prepare for demonstrations on Monday in New York and Los Angeles.

The writers want higher fees, or "residuals", derived from work released on DVD or online.

The studios have rejected their demands as unworkable.

Nick Counter, president of the AMPTP, said earlier that no progress was possible "for overriding business reasons".

"The DVD issue is a roadblock to these negotiations," he added.

Talk shows hosted by stars such as Jay Leno, David Letterman and Jon Stewart are expected to stop almost immediately as they rely on a supply of topical jokes.

It was anticipated NBC would broadcast repeats of Leno's programme, The Tonight Show, plus Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Saturday Night Live from Monday if the walkout went ahead, the Hollywood Reporter said.

It also said old episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report would be screened under contingency plans by the Comedy Central channel.

But as yet it was unclear what other networks intended to do, it added.

Leno made a quip about the strike on-air on Friday, saying:

"They call it the toughest time for comedy writing since those three weeks back in the 1990s when Bill Clinton stopped dating. Remember that?"

Filling the gaps

The 1988 action disrupted the autumn television season.

At that time, Letterman was host of NBC's Late Night, and his programme was taken off-air at first. It did return before the end of the strike, however, but many other shows remained unbroadcast.

It is anticipated daytime TV output, such as chat shows and soap operas, would be next to suffer if this month's walkout goes ahead. These series are typically recorded about a week in advance of transmission.

The strike would not immediately impact production of film or primetime TV programmes, the Associated Press reported.

This was because most movie studios had already kept aside a number of scripts, and many high-profile TV dramas and comedies had enough scripts or completed shows to last until early next year.

But then Hollywood analysts do expect the supply of shows such as Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty and CSI to fizzle out, and many writers fear the TV networks will turn to additional repeats and reality programmes to fill the resulting gaps.

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Ugh, wasn't it a labour dispute like this that originally launched a plethora of reality shows a few years back...?

Any comments? Sypathy for either side?

 

[azzaman333]

I suspect the quality of TV will increase during a strike.

 

[Che Guava]

I suspect the quality of TV will increase during a strike.

Reruns and reality shows will INCREASE the quality of television...?


I respectfully disagree...!

 

[azzaman333]

Reruns and reality shows will INCREASE the quality of television...?


I respectfully disagree...!

Well, the reruns will be the better epsiodes, and they can't make reality TV that quickly. (I hope)

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

I thought they already made a fortune.

 

[Che Guava]

Well, the reruns will be the better epsiodes,

...maybe, but who cares if you've already seen them? Lucky for me, I haven't watched TV in a month!

and they can't make reality TV that quickly. (I hope)

You'd be surpirsed... yeech...

I thought they already made a fortune.

Not the writers, at least according to them...

 

[philippe]

for each great episode of a quality series they need 20 scriptwriters
(excluding lost cause lost has "lost" it )
but it's the actors who go with all the fame and the money.

 

[Princeps]

Maybe they'll learn to reduce scriptwriters and become more effiecent.

 

[Winner]

Idiots, I want my Battlestar Galactica Season 4!

(which reminds me of Adama/Cain solution of strikes and mutinies... )

 

[Che Guava]

Maybe they'll learn to reduce scriptwriters and become more effiecent.

I don't know if efficiency really comes into it, if we're talking about creative writing.

 

[Rambuchan]

Writers have been getting a bad deal in most walks of the film and tv business for ages. I know, I was one of them for a while. The crap pay was just one reason why I turned to producing instead.

When one considers that writers originate the content in the first place, and keep it topical, it hardly seems fair that they should be paid like crew members ie. with a one off fee or basic retainer. They are every bit "talent" in the sense that actors and directors are. Pity the film and tv industry can't accept what the music industry recognised long ago.

Excluding writers from either the expanding DVD and internet markets, or from residuals provided by the old revenue streams (some do already get paid this way actually), whilst actors are cashing in, is a sure way to piss off the people who come up with the very material that every one else works on. The talk of running off to reality tv and repeats just shows how important writers are.

If producers, directors and actors are to benefit from these new revenue streams and their accompanying residuals, it would seem sensible, justifiable, and indeed affordable to keep talented writers on side and reward them similarly. A precedent need not be set that others would follow, for they aren't crew members, whilst those others are.

Unfortunately, "for overriding business reasons" really means fatter profits for the execs and squeezing the staffing costs to keep these rolling in. Same old story. Execs trampling over the talent. And what do we, the viewing public, get? Dross and re-runs.

 

[shmily_dana]

I HATE reality shows. I'll be watching MST3k DVDs.

 

[skadistic]

Maybe we will get lucky and the companies will hire new writers and we will get fresh ideas instead of the same old rehashed garbage. Last time this happened we got reality shows instead.

 

[Pannonius]

Who cares about Hollywood writers?

 

[Che Guava]

Maybe we will get lucky and the companies will hire new writers and we will get fresh ideas instead of the same old rehashed garbage. Last time this happened we got reality shows instead.

I don't know that too many (talented) writers will be scabs, seeingas they might find themselves pretty alone when the strike is over...and i do expect more stupid relaity shows...maybe some inspiring story about how drug-addicted rap stars lose weight? ...yeeech....

Who cares about Hollywood writers?

According to them? Nobody.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

Now who's gonna recycle the same old ideas and write unfunny crap?

 

[Fifty]

They better have damn clever picket signs!

 

[warpus]

Who cares?

It's just TV

 

[skadistic]

I don't know that too many (talented) writers will be scabs, seeingas they might find themselves pretty alone when the strike is over...and i do expect more stupid relaity shows...maybe some inspiring story about how drug-addicted rap stars lose weight? ...yeeech....

Scabs? Isn't that whats writing now? There hasn't been an original idea from hollywood if over a decade. How much talent does that take?

 

[WerBackIII]

I remember about a Woodhouse's short storie with simmilar plot.