The writer's strike...

[phantom power]

I was just thinking. What can motivate the networks to negotiate? The only thing that makes them hurt is losing advertising dollars. If the strike causes their Neilsen ratings to drop, then the advertisers start to pull out, and then they negotiate.

[Rick Myers]

1. The biggest losers are the new shows with only a few episodes in the can.

Syndicated shows and reality crap will fill the void for a bit. But show with less than 100 episodes will suffer.

[progressivebydesign]

4. no, biggest losers are the below-the-line personnel and supporting biz.

They're the ones that are getting hurt here.. the writers with less credits and work are getting hurt, too. The networks can probably absorb it... but the peripheral professions, the local donut shops, etc. etc. etc. are the ones getting hurt.

[aquart]

2. Pilot season won't be happening.

You can't line up advertisers for a product you ain't got.

Me, I don't watch reality shows. And the news that they're non-union...oh, I ain't gonna be trying them in the future, either.

[Nailzberg]

3. Its not quite true that reality shows are non-union.

At least not across the board. More and more reality shows are employing union crew. IATSE and the Teamsters have been quite successful at unionizing reality shows workers. The reason reality hasn't been affected by the WGA strike, is that they do not employ writers.

Now, there is some argument going about here over what constitutes a writer, as reality shows do have story editors that peice together storylines using the footage they receive from the field. Some shows do more of this unscripted storytelling than than others, with story editors making creative decisions during production, requesting field producers to play up certain angles or "try to get" more of a certain storyline. For this reason, story editors have been making a push recently to be included in the writers guild, but they haven't had much success yet. Many Hollywood script writers see reality workers as less than equals, and resent this unionizing effort as diluting the talent pool, but still support the effort in general as it adds to the rosters and bolsters their benefits, retirements, and collective bargaining power.

[aquart]

6. Thanks for the correction.

[pstokely]

5. Loss of profits and ratings

It will take awhile before they really feel the impact