As some of you may already know, the Writers Guild of America has officially gone on strike today after last-minute talks fell apart yesterday.
The dispute is mainly over unfair distribution of profits and payments of DVD sales and online, cell phone and other downloaded mediums, otherwise known as “new media”. Approximately 12,000 writers are affected and many have already started picketing in New York and Los Angeles.
For the average viewer, television and movies will continue to be broadcast as normal. Production companies, in anticipation of a possible strike, have been stockpiling scripts for the last six months. With enough material to continue filming easily into next spring, the only shows being affected immediately will be nightly and weekly live shows like the “Tonight Show” and “Saturday Night Live”. Everything that is already written and budgeted to go to picture will continue as scheduled.
There were rumors that some productions were going to honor the strike and stop production. We have yet to see if that will materialize. I was informed that Battlestar Galactica was one of those productions that would stop filming but I am booked to work on the show tomorrow, so I guess not 
Short term repercussions will be negligible, but the bigger picture here is how this strike may affect the industry if it is drawn out. The last Writers Strike in 1988 lasted twenty-two weeks and cost the industry an estimated $500 million.
The silver lining in all this is that, for Canadian productions, the strike doesn’t affect those of us north of the 49th parallel. If this strike continues into next year, many American networks may pick up Canadian shows to fill in time slots and please the viewers sick of reruns. Great news for well-written and critically acclaimed Canadian shows like “Intelligence“, a gritty drama about a Vancouver-based crime boss and the inner workings of CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service – the Canadian equivalent of the CIA).
In the meantime, you may see a lot more actors getting jobs in the restaurant and nightclub industries as the effects of the Writers Strike start setting in.
Posted on November 6th, 2007 by Leo
Filed under: Lucid Thoughts
I hope the strike doesn’t last 22 weeks like in 1988
Wow are you serious! 22 weeks is a fair strike!
I hope it gets settled before you lose money.
I wonder if the late night shows will be better or worse?
Imagine Americans watching Whistler and … gasp … Beachcombers!
BTW, I saw you on Whistler last week for a whole 3 seconds or so. You were security for the underground casino
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This is going to suck. Between losing Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, and Stargate…
Producer Joseph Mallozzi claims the strike won’t affect Stargate because the show is based in Vancouver and most staff members belong to Canadian unions.
I would dispute that, the show is still American owned and the writers are part of the American guild currently on strike. It doesn’t matter how many Canadians work on the show or where the show is being filmed. If there are no scripts being written, then no filming can be done.
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Really hope Battlestar Galactica doesn’t get affected, although we are that far behind here in Australia it’d be hard to notice! We still haven’t seen season 3! I can’t wait, I’m ordering the DVDs!
You pointed out something that could be a positive from all this. We Americans may be introduced to some quality Canadian programming. Maybe we’d get to see you in a few more shows Leo! I wonder if they are thinking of the long-term repercussions of this if it becomes long and drawn out. We could become introduced to and like the Canadian programming so much that nobody would want to watch the shows anymore even after they started writing them again.
These kind of strikes is pretty stupid. The companies receive so much revenue that giving a higher portion to the employees shouldn’t even hurt.
Watching TV lately is horrible!! RE-RUNS after RE-RUNS!
-Mike
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I am all for bringing in some Canadian TV shows. Strikes hapeen all the time and eventually the strike will be over but for right now some new shows out of Canada could be a good thing. Everyone needs a change.
In the comment about it NOT affecting the Canadian productions- I beg to differ as I’m sure the thousands of film/television crew on this side of the border. I work in the biz and it IS affecting us as well. We have quite a few Americans come here to shoot and due to the strike, lots of us are now unemployed as well.
Just to clarify……
Thanks for the input, TD. I’m not disputing your info at all, as many people I know have been laid off due to the strike on shows such as Battlestar where I usually work on weekly.
What I was referring to are purely Canadian productions (i.e.: CBC, etc.), not American productions working in Canada.
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