Impact of the WGA Strike: Less People Watching TV - Time to end it already!
By fred | January 21, 2008
Networks haven’t really shown anything that would let one think they wanted to put an end to this whole strike situation as soon as possible. In fact, they are the ones who left the table and refused to even talk with WGA for weeks and weeks. And even though they’ve had to pay advertisers back, they mostly seem to be fine with it and think that even a very long strike wouldn’t really impact them.
I think this is what they believe in, because I can’t really explain their behavior any other way. Even if they wanted to pressure the WGA by signing a deal with the DGA first, don’t they realize how bad weeks, months even, without scripted content will is affecting the whole industry. A recent poll conducted by Interpret revealed that already 35 percent of Americans have changed their media consumption habits as direct a result of the writers strike, and no less than 27% are watching less network TV.
And it should be reminded to all the big networks that amongst those people are viewers lost forever, viewers who turned their back on television, never to return. After years of being treated like crap, of new series being canceled after only a couple of episodes, of series ending their season on a cliffhanger only to not get picked up for a last one, with the disappearance of their favorite TV shows, many people are turning either to different source of entertainment completely, or will find, when the time comes, new sources (not always legal) for their media addiction.
And if 94% of Americans are aware of the strike, and 55% are cognizant of the issues involved, and a large majority of them do support the writers. Of the 55% aware of the issues going on, only 7% support producers while 56% are behind the writers (37% don’t support either).
Interpret also found that, if the networks were to replace first-run series with reality shows and repeats, nearly half of Americans (46%) would change their TV viewing behaviors. So if unscripted shows and reruns can do for now, on the long time it won’t work, people will (quickly) get tired of it and turn away from TV. I would say that studios have dragged this thing for already too long, and now they have to work things out if they don’t want to kill their industry.
“Ironically, the strike makes scripted programming more valuable than ever. As top shows disappear from prime time, viewers may go back and view critically-lauded TV series they missed the first time around, play more video games or watch more movies on DVD. Interpret’s past research has demonstrated that consumers’ media habits are already splintered, and the strike is accelerating those changes.”
There may be hope, however, since people are finally talking to one another and moguls have agreed to meet with WGA leaders for some informal meetings. And it’s about time, because the strike will have, is having an impact on television. It has been reported that CBS CEO Les Moonves and Fox CEO Peter Chernin actually held such informal meetings over the weekend, so there might be hope. (Side note, I wonder why no one from ABC is ever involved in those meetings ? Aren’t they the ones being beaten by The CW ? Shouldn’t they be rushing in ?)
A management source said it could take until midweek for the parties to advance those chats to more elaborate discussions. Hopefully they’ll be able to work out issues that the AMPTP has found objectionable, which includes reality TV and animation jurisdiction, the right to stage sympathy strikes, and forced arbitration in residual situations involving vertically integrated businesses.
Now as far as I’m concerned, having no expertise on the topic, I would still go on and say WGA should drop the reality & animation jurisdiction thing, cause I feel that wasn’t really part of the whole thing for the start, that’s not what the strike is supposed to be about. About the rest, especially that last item, with a pretty complicated name, sounds like some Internet or New Media residual deal the writers have been fighting for, since day one, so on this one AMPTP should cave in.
Either way, they better work this whole thing out fast, because we’re dying over here, and it’s been months, way too much time have been wasted already !
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