After a hard day at work or school, there’s nothing better than coming home, plopping down on the sofa and escaping reality for a few by indulging in our favorite television shows.
But for us avid TV viewers, the world as we know it may have come to a halt. By that, I mean the world we live in for at least an hour each week, or more for some couch potatoes.
Will we become desperate for drama without “Desperate Housewives,” or lose our sanity without our weekly dose of “Lost?” Will we ever enjoy current events without Jon Stewart? How are we going to sleep at night without our fix of Stephen Colbert?
My head is practically spinning just thinking about it. I think I might be suffering from Meredith Grey depletion. That’s what happens when you miss an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy.”
In case you haven’t been watching the regular news, Hollywood’s TV and film writers have gone on strike after three months of failed contract negotiations. This came after expiration of the three-year contract between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
As of Nov. 1, union writers put down their pens and picked up picket signs to protest unfair negotiations. The issues at hand regard residuals for TV shows and movies, as well as higher compensation for new media, like computers, cell phones and video iPods.
Writers are feeling a little short-changed for their work. Any writer out there, no matter how amateur, can feel a little empathy. Writing is no easy task when you’re trying to keep the attention of an audience without boring them to tears. I challenge anybody to write the next episode of “Heroes.”
Currently, writers are getting about 5 cents for every $19 DVD sold, based on a pay formula dating back about 20 years. At the time, the formula was based on high manufacturing costs of VHS tapes. This was long before the DVD business exploded and prior to the rise of the Internet.
Today’s producers wanted to apply that same formula to digital downloads, which is causing an uproar for writers who fear a repeat of past wrongs as technology revolutionizes the way entertainment is delivered.
The last writers’ strike occurred nearly 10 years ago. People lost their jobs for more than five months and the entertainment industry suffered a strike-related loss of up to $500 million.
This current ordeal couldn’t have come at a better time, what with the holidays right around the corner. As if it wasn’t bad enough to have to watch the same old Christmas movies every year, now we’ll be stuck with nothing but reruns; more dreaded “Cops” episodes and the rise of reality shows, as if they haven’t risen too high already.
The negotiations even involved talks about unionizing reality shows? How bogus is that?
With vacations nearing, viewers will have more time to catch up on all those shows piled up on their TiVo and, once their favorite shows are in rerun mode, they’ll be free to enjoy other types of programming.
There’s even a theory that reality shows and reruns will drive away viewers for good as they resort to the Internet for their entertainment needs.
How long this strike will last we don’t know. Networks don’t seem willing to budge on their proposals as they are making plans to carry on with the show. The networks have stockpiled scripts, but that reservoir will dry up in time.
There is also the option of hiring non-union workers, or scabs, making guild members virtually replaceable.
But scriptwriters are the heart of the industry. Without them, actors and talk show hosts would have no lines to utter.
“I’ve been working with these people for 20 years. Without them, I’m not funny. I’m a dead man,” said out-of-work “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno.
I hope it’s over before I have to survive on another season of “Survivor.”
Nikki Payne is a senior journalism major and a contributing writer for the Daily Forty-Niner.
