Writer's Strike Thread

[ChangedBYSon]

I agree with you 100% on both counts. The industry is screwing over writers and there needs to be a strike NOW while

the pie is still fresh, because down the road, these revenues are going to get huge and writers will be assed out.

Fair is fair and writers deserve their fair share.

On the other hand, daytime is so bad off, it can't afford the impact of a strike. Substitute writers really are needed or

everything's going to fall apart much faster than it already was.

[ChangedBYSon]

I see "Guiding Light", "Days of Our Lives" and "Passions" going off the air before the end of 2008.

"All My Children" is in big trouble as well if they don't get a decent HW soon, LIKE YESTERDAY!

[RuAsRuAnAu]

What about ATWT? Aren't ATWT and GL a packaged deal where Procter & Gamble are concerned? It is both shows or no shows.

Who would be that decent HW? Frons is way to controlling for most people to become AMC's HW. Maybe this was Frons' dream all along, to get AMC near the bottom of the barrel (2.1 million, Nov 2007) so he could get rid of it and have a The Fashionista Diaries type show on ABC-D.

What about OLTL? It sunk to 2.3 million viewers TWICE in the same week. Is Carlivati a puppet of Frons' like Valentini is?

[bellcurve]

I've been saying for months that I think DAYS is gone before the Olympics.

[Chris B]

I read that during the '88 strike, TV lost 9% of viewers who never came back. With cable, internet, etc. we'll lose much more than that. I'm sure all those shows on the bubble that were building an audience will be cancelled. I do hope 30 Rock can survive this.

[ljacks13]

From the Los Angeles Times

A cliffhanger for soaps

Like sands through the hourglass. Some fear time is slipping away for the genre, and the work stoppage could make this bad situation worse.

By Lynn Smith

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/...e-entertainment

November 12, 2007

When veteran soap opera writers heard ABC's official statement about the post-strike future of its daytime dramas -- "We will continue to produce original programming with no repeats and without interruption" -- they knew it was bad news. If history repeats itself, it meant they would be replaced, as soon as necessary, by strike breakers, non-union writers -- or maybe even the producers themselves.

"They'll write it however they can get it written," said Marlene Clark Poulter, a 17-year soap opera writer currently on strike from DirecTV's "Passions."

While the writers strike has already forced late-night talk shows into reruns and halted production of some prime-time shows, the soaps face extra hurdles that some fear may jeopardize the struggling genre altogether.

"Daytime can't run reruns. It's a different business," said Lynn Leahey, editorial director for Soap Opera Digest and Soap Opera Weekly. Prime-time audiences are used to seeing reruns when the shows are on hiatus, she said, but long absences from the airwaves have hurt all soap operas in the past: Once viewers lose the habit, they often disappear for good.

"Our audience watches because they've been watching for a long time," said Michele ValJean, a 15-year writer on ABC's "General Hospital" on the picket line. "We lost 8 million viewers over the O.J. Simpson trial who never came back."

Networks can't afford to lose those viewers -- mainly because there aren't that many left. Even the most popular daytime drama, CBS' "The Young and the Restless," would have been canceled 15 years ago with its current ratings of 4.6 million households. Older fans have not been replaced by younger ones despite efforts to reach them with supernatural plot lines or Web-related material. Canceled soaps, such as NBC's "Sunset Beach," haven't been replaced.

Others may be hanging by a thread. Of nine remaining daytime soaps, NBC's "Days of Our Lives" and "Passions" rank lowest with 2.4 million and 1.6 million households, respectively, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Soap writers fear that the studios will replace them, even before prepared scripts run out, to keep the flow of daily stories continuing.

During the five-month writers' strike in 1988, the soaps aired uninterrupted because so many people were willing and eager to try their hand at writing. "I know some actors who can't wait to get hold of a pen," Leahey said.

She and others worry about a domino effect. If the quality of the writing suffers, viewers may be alienated and tune out. And then the networks might drop the soaps altogether.

"This time, unlike 1988, you've got a real possibility of people going to the Internet or the PlayStation. There are so many other options nowadays for people to get their entertainment, it's almost a calculated risk. They could win the battle but lose the war," said television historian Wesley Hughes, author of "The Soap Opera Encyclopedia."

For the moment, the fears are only speculation. Network officials say their pipelines are well stocked. ABC said scripts for its soaps "One Life to Live," "General Hospital" and "All My Children" were written "well into the new year," according to a network statement. NBC has scripts to take its sole soap, "Days of Our Lives," through January. Likewise, CBS' "The Young and the Restless," "The Bold and the Beautiful," "As the World Turns" and "The Guiding Light" are set through January, representatives said.

After that? Network executives declined to discuss how they would keep the plot pumps primed. To make it work, producers would need to find a team of writers, not just one or two, who know the show intimately enough to turn out satisfactory scripts. Soap writers, who live in various regions across the country, tend to write together over conference calls.

The soap scribes in the Writers Guild of America have the same concerns in the fight for a new contract as their prime-time counterparts, including residuals for new media and resentment that the networks hadn't helped solve that problem when it came up before the 1988 writers' strike. Back then, "new media" was "this baffling new thing," said Melissa Salmons, a former writer for "As the World Turns" and "Guiding Light." "We made concessions because they said as the business grew they would take care of us. It never happened."

Already, a soap writer such as Poulter can see her work for "Passions" replayed on NBC.com without any additional payment coming her way.

"It's about learning from the past," Salmons said.

The veteran daytime writers see another difference in the timing of this strike. The 1988 walkout began in March, when production of the prime-time season was essentially over. "Last time, daytime writers felt they were walking alone" at the outset, Salmons recalled. "This time, everyone in TV is impacted because the timing is in the middle" of the prime-time season.

The irony for the daytime writers is that even as they strike over issues related to new media, they see hope for their struggling genre in the very same new media, particularly the Internet. "It could be a very good thing for us," said Poulter, referring to the opportunity it presents to get their product before new viewers. But only if "the producers come to bat for us," she added.

[email protected] Times staff writer Joseph Menn contributed to this report.

NOTE: Does anyone agree that soaps will survive on the internet? I just don't see today's soaps on the internet, I mean would people pay to watch them or if they were free, is it feasible to produce a show on the internet. Most shows I see on internet are like five minutes long.

[Khan]

Isn't it amazing? This is probably the most press the soaps have received since before O.J.

I can't say for certain whether soaps would survive exclusively on the Internet. They transitioned to TV from radio, so why not?

OTOH, I, for one, wouldn't suddenly pay for something I've always received for free.

(Pause)

That came out wrong, didn't it?

[bellcurve]

Screw the strike, how did this girl(at 17) get a job writing for PASSIONS?!

I would've been Jim Reilly's rent boy to get a job on PASSIONS. Well...probably not that, BUT, really? Was she a daughter of someone's at NBC Uni?

[JackPeyton]

^they mean shes been writing in soaps for 17 years, not that she is 17 years old... i think.,

now that i read it again, i dont know now...

okay... so now i have decided they mean she is a 17 year soap writer. not 17 yearsold.

[stenbeck212]

I'll never understand that. For me there wasn't a doubt that the soaps would go on once that trial was concluded. I think those people would have cut and run for any reason, which makes their previous years of viewership a mystery.

[GoldenDogs]

Hey Bellcurve...

Marlene Clark Poulter has been around for a while. She started writing for DAYS in the early 90's... a period of that time was spent as associate head writer until she left for Passions when it started it up in '99. She isn't 17 years old. She has both an Emmy and a WGA award under her belt...

Brian

[Ryan]

Brian I don't know if you already said something, but what is your opinion on the writer's strike?

[Ryan]

[bellcurve]

Thanks for the info. I should have taken a closer look at that article.

And what did she get a WGA and an Emmy award for? Days?

[Sylph]

Found this article on the Snark Weighs In blog. According to Mark in the comments, the airdate for Friday's episode on IMDB is 8767, which means 29 more episodes.

Thanks, Chris B!