Writer's Strike Thread

[Khan]

God, I hope so.

At the very least, WillenFan, if the scab writers are paying attention at all to the shows as they're writing them, they'll have to adjust if, for whatever reason, something just plain isn't working.

Plus, depending on how long the strike lasts, there's a good chance the "real" writers' storyline projections will run out at some point, and they will have to dream up stories of their own.

[WillenFan21]

Yeah that I am wondering if thats what they are doing with the Willen Storyline on ATWT. Over on [sITE NAME NOT ALLOWED] board it was posted here http://z7.invisionfree.com/DaytimeRoyalty/...?showtopic=4881 that Evan Walsh was supopsed to help Gwen a baby so I am wondering if they have decided to scrap that based on spoilers I read. I was just curious if it was possible that soaps would have to do that. LIke for example:

Instead of Will and Gwen getting Evans help they are going scrap that and just end the SL with Will and Gwen getting Sofies baby. All this due to the strike and with Jen and Jesse's contracts coming up in March/April.

[Sylph]

But I don't think they have to obey what's written in those projections... And many shows, apparently, don't even have those. Kreizman doesn't write them.

[NYC123]

Can B&E get fired if the stike lasts long into 2008?

[Sylph]

I think their fate at AMC has already been sealed.

[Chris B]

They are lifers at ATWT, because Goutman will never be fired and he won't fire his friends.

Thanks Toups! That's still too long though. I need these hacks to be fired NOW! On the upside, it won't be too long until Y&R is LML-free!

I'm not sure they'll realize what isn't working. We still don't know who'll be scabbing. At ATWT I fully expect MORE babies. Hell, Kim and Lisa will probably get pregnant.

\

I strongly doubt Y&R would have any projections because nothing on screen every seems planned. It's like LML will get a crap idea, drop the current story and do her next stunt. On Ryan's Hope during the '81 strike, the strike writers almost immediately wrapped up all the storylines, so Claire Labine started fresh when she returned.

[NYC123]

God! I hope they are gone!

There crapfest has gone out of hand!

[Sylph]

The best part (again!) is the idiocy of daytime and the eternal question: why have these people been hired at all?! Apart from being servile, other reasons are absolutely unknown to me.

Everyone said it was gonna be a mess and look - it is... Gee...

Now there's that looming catastrophe that Lynn Latham will be hired to helm AMC and then you can say "goodbye forever, AMC, it was nice knowing you".

[Sylph]

December 9, 2007

You Couldn’t Write This Stuff: TV Reality Sets In

By EDWARD WYATT

From The New York Times

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 8 — Each year television viewers emerge in January from the traditional December blizzard of holiday specials and college football bowl games seeking new comforts from their favorite comedies and dramas, shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Two and a Half Men” and “House.”

Come January, however, they are more likely to be left to joust with the real-life “American Gladiators.”

As a result of the now monthlong strike by the Writers Guild of America, almost none of the most popular shows on prime time television will be offering new episodes to viewers after the first of the year, or for the foreseeable future.

In their place on the networks’ schedules will be repeats or reality programs, some of them returning but many of them new — shows like “The Moment of Truth,” a Fox offering in which contestants are strapped to a lie detector and asked about their most intimate secrets on a national stage.

The flood of reality programming will be the first repercussion that many Americans will see in prime time from the writers’ strike, an event that has drawn relatively little concern beyond Hollywood and Manhattan. But the strike looks likely to continue; talks between the writers and Hollywood studios collapsed Friday, with the sides still deeply divided.

While late-night talk shows were almost immediately forced into reruns because of the strike, those shows draw a small fraction of the 40 million viewers who tune in to the prime-time offerings of the four major networks each weeknight.

The strike-fueled growth in reality programming also has the potential to change the face of prime-time television for years to come. Reality programs generally do not employ union-represented writers. While the most popular dramas and comedies will resume production of new episodes once the strike ends, the strike could mean the end for several new series, like “Bionic Woman” on NBC or “K-Ville” on Fox, that have struggled to gain a regular audience this fall. Just as the last writers’ strike, in 1988, helped to spawn a new form of vérité entertainment epitomized by programs like “Cops” and “America’s Most Wanted,” the current writers’ strike will witness the debut of a number of new reality concepts.

“The Moment of Truth” is but one of as many as 27 hours a week of reality programming that the broadcast networks are planning for the first quarter of 2008, according to schedules released in recent weeks and interviews with network officials.

That appears to be the most ever for the relatively young reality genre and represents roughly a 50 percent increase from the 18 to 19 hours of reality programming that the networks have scheduled in recent seasons.

Vince Manze, president of program planning, scheduling and strategy at NBC, said the volume of reality on the schedule next year would be greater than usual. “Certainly some of it is strike-related,” Mr. Manze said. “But part of it is not. We always put reality on in the first quarter,” when shows like “Heroes” go on a brief hiatus, although he acknowledged that the volume of reality on the schedule for early next year was greater than usual.

Among the new reality offerings is “Oprah’s Big Give,” a contest on ABC sponsored by Oprah Winfrey to see who can give away large sums of money to society’s greatest benefit. ABC has long planned to have the series premiere in early 2008, but its potential effect on the network’s ratings is now more important than ever, given that the network’s most successful shows will be appearing in reruns.

At the other end of the spectrum is “American Gladiators” on NBC, a revival of a late-1980s competition that pits contestants against professional athletes in feats of strength, and “When Women Rule the World,” a Fox series that features male contestants trying to survive in an environment ruled by women.

Not all of the comedies and dramas in prime time will be repeats. Some returning series have long been scheduled to resume their run after the first of the year, including “Lost” on ABC and “Medium” on NBC. Some new series also had been set for premieres in January, including “Eli Stone” on ABC and “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” on Fox. In addition, some continuing series have one or more individual episodes remaining, including most of the police dramas on CBS.

The deluge of new reality programming has become necessary because, in the weeks since the members of the Writers Guild of America stopped working on Nov. 5, nearly all comedy and drama series have shut down production for lack of new scripts. The writers are seeking a deal that will give them a share of the profits derived from the use of their material on the Internet and in other electronic media.

The networks are now using the strike as an opportunity to fill their schedules with less-expensive reality programming. Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, said as much at an investor conference last Tuesday. “We have added a number of reality programs to February,” Mr. Moonves said. “We have a lot of terrific plans, and ratings probably will not be as high without the influx of all of our great original programming. But by the same token, costs will be down considerably.”

Laurie Ouellette, an associate professor of communications studies at the University of Minnesota, said that after growing steadily in the first half of the decade, the amount of prime-time programming devoted to reality shows had remained relatively flat since 2005. That was thanks in part to the emergence of a new crop of popular dramas, including “House,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Criminal Minds.”

“But many of those programs are going to be in hiatus because of the strike,” Ms. Ouellette said. “And the networks are responding to the need to come up with shows that are a cost-effective solution to that problem.”

Reality shows, which generally cost $1 million per hour to produce, are far less expensive than most prime-time dramas, which can cost $2 million to $3 million per episode.

CBS is in many ways responsible for the recent growth of reality programming. After the initial success in 2000 of “Survivor,” the network’s groundbreaking castaway competition, the amount of reality programming in prime time grew steadily, from about 4 hours in 2000 to roughly 18 hours in 2005.

After the first of the year, CBS will double, at least, the amount of reality programming on its schedule, to four hours from two this fall, including another installment of “Survivor,” the game show “Power of 10” and three hours of “Big Brother.” NBC will nearly double its amount of reality programming, to seven hours from four. The network has scheduled one of two hourlong installments of “Deal or No Deal” in the Monday hour formerly devoted to “Heroes” and given over the slot normally filled by “The Office” and “Scrubs” to a celebrity version of “The Apprentice.”

And ABC, which has yet to announce formally details of its schedule for the new year, could significantly increase its reality programming from the five to six hours it has run this fall.

The network is expected to bring back “Wife Swap” and “Supernanny,” schedule new editions of “Dancing With the Stars” and “The Bachelor” beginning in March, and add new series, including two more dance competitions. The ABC shows could account for as much as 11 hours of weekly programming, although it is unlikely that the network will schedule all of those shows concurrently. Fox, which schedules only 15 hours of prime-time programming per week, compared with 22 hours each for the other three networks, is keeping its total level of reality programming about steady at seven hours.

The biggest part of that will go to “American Idol,” the most-watched series on television, which accounts for two hours a week of Fox’s schedule.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

So, the strike will enter its 6th week tomorrow. Two more weeks until force majeure can be declared.

I seriously doubt it will happen though...

[dragonflies]

IMO B&E are all but done on AMC.....one of the first things they said when they came to the show is they were TOLD to get ratings up and they've done the complete opposite, so it's ony a matter of time before they're gone.

I do shudder to think who would replace them, cause we never thought anyone could be worse than McTrash....

[Sylph]

Imagine all HW teams being let go...

[RavenWhitney]

It's interesting to note who else didn't sign the Variety ad of 130 daytime writers....

I'm not accusing anyone of being a scab but it is notable...

Chris Whitesell

Paula Cwikly

Michael Malone

Pam Long

Nancy Curlee

It's interesting to note how many writers on that list were not writers on soaps until after each strike

After 1981 Strike

Leah Laiman

Maralyn Thoma

Thom Racina

After 1988 Strike

Donna Swajeski

Mimi Leahy

Janet Iacubuzio

Jean Passanante

I wonder what new names will show up in the credits after this strike is over....?

[Chris B]

Why are these two notable? Neither has written for a soap in years. That's shameful of course, but I could understand them not signing.

[NYC123]

I agree. I do not know what kind of writer they would hire if B&E are gone!

Especially scince Frons is still there.