David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. Hooray! It’s over! Now, the hard part
So it’s over. The writers’ strike, that is – WGA members actually have yet to vote on the new contract they’ve been offered, but they likely will ratify it soon, and anyway they – and the rest of Hollywood, and the rest of the L.A. economy affected by the strike – can get back to work.
In case you missed it, here’s my story on what happens now with your favorite shows when the writers return and the subsequent effects of the strike on both writers and the networks.
And though a number of stories – like mine linked above and a Variety story I linked to earlier – have analyzed the fallout and what the writers achieved, the New York Times’ David Carr added its thoughts today:
“(T)he strike was bad for writers in the short term. The delays caused by the strike prompted the studios to ask themselves a fundamental question about the need to finance all manner of pilots for a traditional upfront extravaganza followed by a traditional introduction in the fall. That system, fairly unchanged through the years, has historically been lucrative for writers.
“Emboldened by the strike, the studios severed existing contracts with writers, successfully turned over more of their prime-time schedules to reality programming and vowed to hold the line on filming new shows for next season.
“Some 70 development deals in which writers were essentially paid lucrative stipends to come up with shows that might not ever be broadcast are now gone, and they will not be coming back any time soon.
“The events are likely to bring at least a few lean years to the workaday writers. With less spending on pilots, established writers will be in the hunt because they lost their cushy deals on the lot. With increased incursion from all forms of reality programs, finding work that pays the bills, never mind the residuals, is going to be a slog.”
It pointed out that AMPTP pretty much forced their hands.
And Variety further considers which shows will and won’t be immediately returning.
And now, everyone gets back to work. Let’s wake up tomorrow refreshed and ready to rumble and pretend all of this was just a bad dream.