Writers Guild of America members by Joe Kohen/WireImage.com
The Writers Guild of America strike is history — or as one network executive put it, "Our long regional nightmare is over." Scribes are back to work and now we can obsess about how many new episodes of Desperate Housewives are left. But let's take a look at what was really won and lost in this battle.
PROS
For the writers: It took courage and foresight for the guild members to take a significant short-term loss to ensure that they'll have a piece of TV's future. By fighting to get a two percent stake in income generated by digital distribution of shows, they recognized how the TV-viewing experience is undergoing a fundamental change — a new generation is now watching on computer screens, iPods and mobile phones. Now that the writers have that piece of that action, you can bet they'll never give it up in future contracts.
For the networks: Though ratings began to sag, the financial impact of the strike wasn't that significant. They learned that, like most other countries in the world, they can get by with giving viewers more reality programming (still not covered by the guild). They were also able to press the restart button on a TV season that suffered from the worst new-program development in years.
For the studios: From the early days of the strike, there were rumblings that the studios would use the job action as an opportunity to clean house and get rid of writer-producer deals that weren't generating any hits. It wasn't an empty threat, as dozens of deals were terminated.
CONS
For the writers: They have lost a couple of time slots to reality shows that got some ratings traction during the work stoppage (American Gladiators, The Moment of Truth), and may lose more by the time the dust settles. There also may be some disappointment when they actually see how much (or little) they earn from digital distribution in the short term.
For the networks: Executives talked boldly about how the strike could be an opportunity to restructure the business. There was discussion about getting rid of the expensive process of developing pilots, which required throwing money at the same pool of actors, writers and producers at the same time and then scrambling to launch dozens of new shows in the fall. Major changes might have happened if the strike had lasted through June. But it didn't. The pressure is on to get back to network TV as we know it.
For the entertainment conglomerates that own the networks and studios: They've been telling Wall Street that they've got this digital thing licked and that plenty of profits will be rolling in. But their line to the union was that no one knows how much anyone is really going to make from it. Apparently the directors believed that revenue generated by digital distribution would be so meager that they didn't hold out for a percentage in their contract. What are the companies going to tell Wall Street now?
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