After CBS a few days ago, it’s time for NBC now to announce its special winter schedule, and because they don’t want to let the strike affect things, they try to pretend it’s all good, even stating that “NBC’s first-quarter primetime schedule is slated to deliver significantly more hours of original programming than was ever the case in the first quarter of 2007“.
Right, yeah, sure. Just don’t expect “original programming” to be anything close to “good programming”, or else you’re in for some disappointment.
Main things to know are :
- Medium will have its season premiere Monday, January 7 at 10.00
- Law & Order: Criminal Intent, the show that was once not good enough for NBC and “downgraded” to USA will finally make it back to NBC, starting Wednesday, January 9 at 9.00
- Law & Order, the original one, will have its two-hour season premiere on January 2nd before heading to its regular timeslot on Wednesdays at 10.00
With a strike going on, many adjustments have to be made. CBS made them and announced what their schedule will be next year, with a strike going on (or, hopefully, only side-effects of a by then resolved strike. One can dream…)
The most important things to know are :
- On January 28 at 8.30 will premiere new sitcom The Captain, about a group of people sharing a Hollywood apartment building, El Capitan, which they’ve dubbed “The Captain”, starring Chris Klein, Jeffrey Tambor and Raquel Welch. Sounds very new, right? Lead-in will be reruns of How I Met Your Mother.
- Same day at 9.30 will premiere the new season of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine in place of Rules Of Engagement; again lead-in will be reruns of Two And A Half Men
After running a poll, website IWantMedia.com (edited by Patrick Phillips, an adjunct professor in the journalism department at NYU) announced the result of a poll they conducted in which was determined who the media person of 2007 was, and the successor of Stephen Colbert last year and others such as Anderson Cooper (2005) or Jon Stewart (2004) before him is… drum roll please… the writers on strike !
Coming in first with 56% of the votes, ahead of Rupert Murdoch, Perez Hilton, or even Google itself, the striking writers were voted as the most newsworthy figures in media this year. Let’s just hope they can’t be nominated for that same award next year as well…
Really, everyone does. Even the animals you often see being cute and/or funny on viral videos you send to your friends so they can watch them and forward them too instead of doing their work.
Yes, they too support the writers and are going on strike, so if you prefer watching cute funny animals and forwarding videos to your friends than doing your job, then you have to support the writers. Or something like that.
The situation was different over at the Tonight Show, though, and Jay Leno did not seem to be going that same road as well. Then, he started to be trashed by many people, and headlines popped out reading “Leno fires staff!”
About 120 of the show’s non-writing staffers were being laid off by NBC - not Leno - and the studios also said that there was absolutely no guarantee that they would be re-hired once the strike would be over. In other words, they might be out of work for good, strike or not.
So there’s this ongoing writers’ strike, and studios and other liars are claiming that they can’t pay writers out of online streaming and content written for the Internet, because you know, either it’s promotion or they’re not even sure if they’d be able to make a penny out of it, those poor babies.
Meanwhile, as we all know, they’re making a fortune out of it. Recently Financial Times just revealed that the four US television networks are in line to generate $120 million of revenues in 2007 from online content, according to a leading media buyer.
It is nothing new though, as we’ve already seen them admitting to such things in this video. But that was all before writers dared asking to be paid for their work, of course. Since then, the Internet is something so new and unpredictable there’s just no way to make money out of it. No really, if you don’t believe me just google it!
Before writers went on strike, studios tried to have as many scripts written and episodes completed as they could, in prevision of such an event. And now that the strike is here, some are already kicking some reruns trying to keep new content available as long as they can. Of course this isn’t always possible, and some shows are already out “for good”, The Office comes to mind obviously.
Studios have tried to say they were not so worried, that they had a lot of reality crap in stock, and that they were ready for a long strike. Some exec even said that a strike could have some good, before it would allow them not to pay for all the pilots they usually invest in. But reality might be different.
As soon as the strike started, all late night show went off. Unlike scripted series late night shows are written day to day and obviously can’t have episodes made in advance, and reruns have been airing for the whole month of November now; resulting in networks having to give sponsors their money back one way or another, something they obviously don’t like to do.
Networks have been pressuring all their hosts to get back on the air, and so far no one caved (except for Ellen DeGeneres, who only took a little break before going back). The idea of having guest-host was even thrown around at NBC as a way to get their Tonight Show back on without Leno. In fact NBC’s high pressure succeeded as Carson Daly is said to go back to work soon.
Here is yet another video from one of the striking writers, and once again it is some pretty funny thing. This time it comes to us from Samantha Who?’s writer Bob Kushell, who’s commenting on a few things, mainly how the strike can affect writers’ marriage.
Done with the assistance of the show’s lead Christina Applegate, this little video is really great and pretty hilarious. It really is. As a matter of fact, I find it to be much better and funnier than the sitcom itself is. Really.
By fred | December 7, 2007 
As soon as the strike started, all late night show went off. Unlike scripted series late night shows are written day to day and obviously can’t have episodes made in advance, and reruns have been airing for the whole month of November now; resulting in networks having to give sponsors their money back one way or another, something they obviously don’t like to do.