Writers Guild Strike Will Doom Mankind!!

Unless the great GOD of TV himself (or herself) comes to the aid of us mere mortals, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) will go on strike effective November 1. The WGA, which has not been on strike since 1988, has sited revenue sharing, online streaming issues, and union problems to be amongst the main reasons they are taking their ball and going home. But what does a strike mean to the television and movie industries?

Audiences world wide will not notice any significant changes when it comes to movies. Hollywood has enough scripts collecting dust in numerous basements and storage rooms to last the next 100 years. These scripts are not necessarily B level documents, but are just simply projects that were never used for numerous reasons. So if a strike does go into effect, the big kahunas of Hollywood will simple shamble down to those same basements and storage rooms, dust of those scripts and keep the money making machine going. These same big wigs claim that television is no different. There are apparently millions of unused TV scripts slithering around in the Hollywood underbelly. Applying the same solution to two distinctly different problems won’t work in this case. Movies and television are not the same, and neither are their viewers.

We are taught and encouraged culturally from a young age that going to see a movie at a theatre is socially acceptable and often times encouraged. We take a date to the movies. We go with friends to the movies, and sometimes we even hide out at the movies. We are also taught to take movies home. A couple takes home a movie. The guys will gather for pizza and a movie. Get my drift? This is where movies hold absolute dominance over television. One is often forced into seeing a movie to the end. With television, all you have to do is change the channel. It doesn’t help that television is a mostly solitary activity, and with no one to answer to, viola, channel flipping is born. Also, the television is forced to constantly compete with other nearby entertainment competitors.

Video games, internet, and a slew of On Demand channels for those with digital cable, are just a few of the alternatives we have at home. Many people will finish a movie, even if they firmly believe its utter crap. For television however, you have all of 30 seconds to impress people or they’ll just change the channel. Television has to work twice as hard to garner audience support, and needs to bring its "A” game every night. Without top notch writers, we won’t get top notch programming. Without top notch programming, viewers will start to drift. For movies, this strike might be a slap on the wrist, but for TV, it could be a knockout.