Issue of the week: Why TV writers are celebrating

last updated 8 January 2015

The writers saw the future of television and went on strike to win a piece of it, said Economist.com. And after 100 days on the picket line, they succeeded. Under a tentative agreement struck this week by the Writers Guild of America and television producers, writers for the first time will earn a small cut of the revenue—2 percent or 3 percent—generated by programming streamed on the Internet. They also doubled their share of revenue from programming sold via downloads. “If the Internet is the future of video content, as many people believe, the agreement could greatly benefit Hollywood’s scribes.” But there are some catches. The payments for streaming start only after a show has been online for 17 to 24 days. The writers also dropped their demand for a larger cut of DVD sales, and they failed to extend the deal’s terms to cover writers for reality shows and animated series. “That is important: being able to fill holes with reality shows protected the media companies financially during the strike.”

Overall, the writers should feel pretty good about the outcome, said David Carr in The New York Times. Getting a piece of digital revenue was “a major concession from management” and represented “the kind of victory that has largely eluded organized labor in the past few years.” Of course, it could be years before programs on digital platforms such as PCs, iPods, and mobile phones throw off significant revenue. Meanwhile, the strike gave TV production studios an opening to change the system for developing new shows. Until the strike, studios paid writers “lucrative stipends to come up with shows that might not ever be broadcast.” Studio heads vow that going forward, they will commission far fewer such “pilot” episodes. And “what about viewers, the real victims of the strike, deprived of new episodes of Heroes?” It can’t have escaped the attention of either the producers or the writers that while the strike dragged on, for the most part “the public shrugged and worked on their Guitar Hero chops.”

Still, people are eager to learn when they’ll get to see new episodes of their favorite shows, said Sheila Marikar in ABCnews.com. Here’s the rundown: Late-night talk shows that hadn’t already struck deals with their writers will return immediately. Half-hour sitcoms such as The Office and How I Met Your Mother should be back on the air by April. The last to return will be animated shows such as Family Guy and hour-long dramatic series such as 24; both types of programs require long production lead times. News of the pending deal turned last week’s Writers Guild award ceremonies in New York into a celebration, said Matea Gold in LATimes.com. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, “the profane dog puppet of Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” spoke for many when he said, without profanity: “I’m told the agreement was met with some controversy, but I believe the overwhelming majority of the guild is relieved to stop striking and get back to being out of work.”