No more TV for awhile... (Writers Strike)

Writers Set to Strike, Threatening Hollywood - New York Times

Originally Posted by N.Y. Times

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 1 — Hollywood’s two decades of labor peace shattered Thursday night, as movie and television writers declared they would embark on an industrywide strike for the first time since 1988, when both writers and Teamsters walked out.

The writers’ union said it would inform its members no later than Friday afternoon as to when the strike would begin, according to a person who attended a union gathering Thursday night at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The strike would pit union writers, whose position has been eroded by reality television and galloping technological change, against studios and networks that are backed by big corporate owners like General Electric and News Corp., but are also unsure of the future.

The walk-out threatens an instant jolt to television talk shows like “Late Night With David Letterman” and “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” which rely on guild writers to churn out monologues and skits. And if the strike drags on, audiences could see the eventual shutdown of soap operas, TV series and movie productions, as they exhaust their bank of ready scripts.

In the near term, a writers' strike will have an immediate impact on more than 200,000 workers in the movie and TV industry here and the thousands more who produce or sell entertainment elsewhere in the United States and abroad. The dispute may also signal more labor trouble to come, as directors and actors face similar issues when their contracts expire next June.

Over the long haul, multiple strikes could lead to a drastic overhaul of the economics of Hollywood. They could redefine the industry’s relationship with its highly unionized work force at a time when DVD sales are cooling and changing movie and TV markets have workers and companies alike vying for their perceived fair share of a yet-to-be-identified next digital bonanza.

“I’m afraid that everybody’s in for a terrible time,” said Norman Lear, the writer, producer and entrepreneur whose career spanned the disruptions of the 1980s — when Hollywood weathered five strikes by its guilds — and the years of relative peace that preceded and followed that tumultuous decade... [continued in the link]

So... how about that? Essentially, we won't be seeing anymore talk shows (Jay, Conan, Colbert, Stewart, etc...) for an indeterminate amount of time. This could be crazy-bad if it's not resolved within a month. If it goes on for a long time, all our favorite shows will be put on hiatus, and we'll see nothing but repeats, news, and possibly reality shows.

Sucks, don't it?

EDIT: Phew, good thing Achmed Owlcat's here to the rescue with scripts from overseas!

Jam it back in, in the dark.