Gadfly: Writers of the world united!
...but now what?
Posted on February 18, 2008
I only remembered the recent writers’ strike after I heard the news last Tuesday. That tells you something.
Somebody talked to somebody and made a deal, but the landscape of network television has already changed. A recent estimate says that writers lost nearly $300 million in wages while they were protesting. The New York Times reports that “24” is postponed for at least a year and “Lost” might cut back its current season. The return of other popular shows is far from immediate. The box office will also feel the hurt: The “Da Vinci Code” sequel “Angels and Demons” will miss its planned December 2008 release.
I’m not condemning the strike, I just find it funny how destructive it all is. This strike struck the final blow to the mainstream networks and the traditional primetime viewing habits they rely on.
My experience with the strike wasn’t too bad, perhaps because I’ve never been a faithful primetime viewer. Like most people, I have my short list of shows that sometimes catch my interest and my one “must-see.” I always thought I could do without it all, though, and I think the strike has shown us that we all can.
A lot of the stuff during the strike proved more interesting, like watching the already goofy Letterman with his beard of solidarity. Conan O’Brien (with a mighty beard of his own) offered us his Strike Diary in Entertainment Weekly for a fun diversion. With so many different forms of entertainment, it’s ridiculously easy to tune out and look elsewhere.
Let’s remember that viewership was declining even before the strike, and the WGA just gave us another reason not to rely on the “must-see-TV” model. There’s a lot of compelling stuff outside of the box grid of primetime.
The current generation already relies less and less on the titans of broadcast and mainstream entertainment, and in these past three months we’ve been vindicated. Personal DVD collections, Comedy Central, Shark Week, “Planet Earth” and “Future Weapons” get loads more attention from college students than the formulaic procedurals and sitcoms that used to dominate the primetime schedule. And of course, there’s MTV, which remained largely unaffected by a lack of professional writers.
Of course I tuned in when “The Colbert Report” came back and the level of self-awareness was refreshing. The lack of a writing team allowed Colbert to experiment with the format of his show, revealing his strengths (and weaknesses) as a comedian. The interviews were more genuine and the ongoing saga of his faux-feud with Conan O’Brien was hilarious. With the strike over, Colbert’s return to form is great news. I think we’ve all missed him as a 100 percent in-character host, with his biting satire and “The Word.”
So whom did the writer’s strike hurt? We went three months without the services of the WGA and we survived (I, for one, thrived). Colbert and Stewart proved they could do pretty well on their own, and the networks now have a new wave of reality programming to tide them over while they renew production on some of their heavy-hitters. That last thing actually puts a sour taste in my mouth—how could they leave us to fend off more reality TV?
One of the issues at stake in the strike was residuals from new media such as internet episodes and “on-demand” programming. The irony that’s becoming apparent is that the strike shifted the focus from the traditional network model to the importance of Internet streaming, episodes downloadable via iTunes, and other time-shifting methods of viewing. Whether intentionally or not, the writers have put more importance on the outlets they want more money from.
The 1988 Writer’s Strike saw the birth of “COPS,” which parallels the current influx of repeats and reality television. That strike also resulted in an estimated loss of 10 percent of the general viewing audience that was never recovered.
I’d wager that the statistics are similar now, if not larger, and comprised mostly of younger people who will continue to exert influence on the entertainment landscape. Maybe I’m alone in my assessment and my place as a college student—unaffected by the dictates of network scheduling—limits my perspective. Still, it seems that the pull of primetime television has never been weaker.
