Posted on 12/09/2007 3:32:17 AM PST by abb
Like a rolling blackout, Hollywood is shutting down.
Fallout from Friday's collapse of negotiations for a new contract between writers and studios will in the weeks and months ahead leave audiences with dwindling entertainment choices.
If the five-week-long strike by the Writers Guild of America continues, it's also poised to affect the awards season, the annual ritual of self-congratulation and promotion that runs through the winter.
And in short order, both the television networks and the movie studios will begin to suffer financial pain as the lack of original content prompts viewers to flee -- with advertisers not far behind.
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Although the studios are banking that they can hold out for at least six months, the long-term effect could be enormous not only for the entertainment industry but also for the region. Hollywood's stream of products contributes nearly 7% -- an estimated $30 billion annually -- to L.A. County's $442-billion economy, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. If the strike continues into next year, which seems possible now, it will result in the loss of $1 billion to the local economy, the development group estimates.
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The strike could also hasten the departure of more advertising dollars from the networks to the Internet. Blossoming cable TV channels benefited enormously from the 22-week writers strike in 1988, attracting both viewers and advertisers who were desperate for something new to watch.
Jack Myers, publisher of the media industry trade report jackmyers.com, said there haven't been any "meaningful losses" yet but estimated the networks could collectively lose $600 million if the walkout continues into next summer. The broadcast networks alone sell more than $9.3 billion a year in advertising.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
ping
I’m wracking my brain trying to figure out how this will affect my life.
It's already affected me. I break out in uncontrollable fits of laughter and giggling from time to time.
I’m laughing right here, right now. That answer fits me to a tee.
The consequences of the strike on me or my family or anybody I know can be summed up as: None, Nada, Zilch, Nothing, or words to that effect....
Liberals must be in a state of confusion. They are the party of UNIONS yet they are the benefactors of the Hollywood powers that be. This better get fixed else liberals are going to feel the pinch when they pass their campaign plates.
Well now, isn’t that a damn shame!
It seems they threw a strike and nobody noticed. My life has not changed one iota as a result of this one, which confirms that I am living a healthy life style. We need garbage men, but not Hollywood’s garbage purveyors.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/arts/television/09tube.html?_r=1&ref=media&oref=slogin
December 9, 2007
You Couldn’t Write This Stuff: TV Reality Sets In
By EDWARD WYATT
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 8 — Each year television viewers emerge in January from the traditional December blizzard of holiday specials and college football bowl games seeking new comforts from their favorite comedies and dramas, shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Two and a Half Men” and “House.”
Come January, however, they are more likely to be left to joust with the real-life “American Gladiators.”
As a result of the now monthlong strike by the Writers Guild of America, almost none of the most popular shows on prime time television will be offering new episodes to viewers after the first of the year, or for the foreseeable future.
In their place on the networks’ schedules will be repeats or reality programs, some of them returning but many of them new — shows like “The Moment of Truth,” a Fox offering in which contestants are strapped to a lie detector and asked about their most intimate secrets on a national stage.
The flood of reality programming will be the first repercussion that many Americans will see in prime time from the writers’ strike, an event that has drawn relatively little concern beyond Hollywood and Manhattan. But the strike looks likely to continue; talks between the writers and Hollywood studios collapsed Friday, with the sides still deeply divided.
While late-night talk shows were almost immediately forced into reruns because of the strike, those shows draw a small fraction of the 40 million viewers who tune in to the prime-time offerings of the four major networks each weeknight.
The strike-fueled growth in reality programming also has the potential to change the face of prime-time television for years to come. Reality programs generally do not employ union-represented writers. While the most popular dramas and comedies will resume production of new episodes once the strike ends, the strike could mean the end for several new series, like “Bionic Woman” on NBC or “K-Ville” on Fox, that have struggled to gain a regular audience this fall. Just as the last writers’ strike, in 1988, helped to spawn a new form of vérité entertainment epitomized by programs like “Cops” and “America’s Most Wanted,” the current writers’ strike will witness the debut of a number of new reality concepts.
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If you do not understand the problem, you will never find the answer. It is not a matter of "dwindling entertainment choices, it is an overabundance of choices.
Truth is, I (like most people) have a limited amount of "free time" that I can use for entertainment. Very few of my free time hours are spent watching first run television programs.
And besides, for the past few years, the TV networks (along with cable) has been training their audiences to accept re-runs as the norm (with only 13 weeks of original programming, the rest of the year is nothing but re-runs).
If the strike last a year, would the viewing public really know the difference?
From the Los Angeles Times Reruns and cheapo fare will rule -- as if it's July By SCOTT COLLINS CHANNEL ISLAND
December 9, 2007
Acouple of months back, this column predicted that if a writers strike did come to pass, the networks would soon turn to two Rs: reality and repeats.
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A long strike would be "not only truncating the current season but significantly shifting the next one as well," said John Rash, senior vice president at ad firm Campbell Mithun.
What's making the networks especially nervous are this fall's ratings, which were dismal even without the strike. In the most recent "sweeps" period, which ended Nov. 28, every network except Fox logged dizzying declines among the critical demographic of viewers ages 18 to 49 compared with the year-earlier period, according to Nielsen Media Research. Third-place NBC shed 13% as heavily promoted entries such as "Bionic Woman" sputtered. (First-place ABC shed 10% in that demographic, while runner-up CBS was down 8%. Fox was fourth but gained 3%.)
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And the bad news keeps coming. On Thursday, new episodes of two tent-pole dramas -- ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and NBC's publicity-drenched 300th episode of "ER" -- dipped to the series' lowest-ever ratings in the 18 to 49 demographic.
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Similarly, and much like when Congress is gridlocked, I wonder if anybody will notice?
The consequences of the strike on me or my family or anybody I know can be summed up as: None, Nada, Zilch, Nothing, or words to that effect....
Contrary to popular belief, the movie industry is a blue collar and trades industry. It will impact a lot of working people.
Maybe, if we get lucky, Hollywood will fall off the face of the earth and that would be no loss.
“Liberals must be in a state of confusion. They are the party of UNIONS yet they are the benefactors of the Hollywood powers that be. This better get fixed else liberals are going to feel the pinch when they pass their campaign plates.”
Speaking of UNIONS, notice how SAG haven’t come out to support their brethren on strike? Where is Tim Robbins, Marty Sheen, Alec Baldwin and friends? Where is Michael Moore and Sean Penn?
Hypocrits. And the MSM won’t report a dang word about it.
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