A Writer’s Conflicted Views on Writers Strike

People keep asking me what I think about the Writers Guild strike, which will kick off Monday, and I’m quite conflicted.

As a reporter covering TV, I know that sectors of the entertainment industry, particularly broadcast TV, are under intense financial pressure, facing spiraling audience declines and ever-more fragmented audiences.

And I also know that everyone – from the print media to TV — is scrambling, somewhat desperately, to find financial models to reap revenue from the Web. TV producers say there is no formula yet for success online, so they are wary about making guarantees to the writers in the Internet arena in any new contract.

But on the other hand, I’m a writer myself [I had to laugh when, during several interviews, people tried to describe how emotional and difficult we writers can be].

So I think TV scribes should receive some kind of compensation when their work is reused on new-media platforms, for example, when it’s streamed on the Internet. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers disagrees with me, and the WGA, on that point.

So here we are. I don’t know how much sympathy the TV writers are going to be able to garner as they walk the picket lines. As one source pointed out to me, the public is likely to perceive Hollywood writers as a bunch of rich guys with fancy cars and young trophy wives, not poor victims to root for.

The Los Angeles Times, in its outstanding strike coverage, has repeatedly written about the devastating financial impact a prolonged strike could have on the city’s economy. The ripple effect of a lengthy strike could put many people out of work.

Garth Ancier, president of BBC Worldwide America, told me that some of his friends at studios have been warned that if the strike continues, they can expect pink slips in about 10 weeks. Studios are expensive to run, and they can’t operate at full staff if they are not producing any TV shows or movies.

So here we are: Another punch to an already shaky U.S. economy. Let’s hope this strike doesn’t last as long as the one in 1988, which was five months long.