Hollywood's Writers' Strike

[Alex]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Nope, the Writers are going to come out way ahead. Showrunners are showing unanticipated support, in hopes of ending the strike quickly by shutting down production a lot faster than was expected.

If that support continues beyond the token stage, there will be no new tv shows within a few short weeks. The Producers Alliance cannot hope to end the strike even on the terms the Guild would have settled for beforethe strike.

But on the other side, media consolidation and ownership by megaglobalcorporates means that the movie and TV business tends to be a relatively small part of the overall financial picture. On the one hand this could lead to them caving faster because it isn't that big of a deal but it could also lead to them taking a long strike in stride since it isn't that big of a deal.

As an example in Q3 2007, NBC Universal contributed 8.9% of GEs revenues and 8.6% of the overall profits. News Corp. isn't quite as extreme but still hardly relies on movies and American TV for its survival. But things are even more extreme at Sony.

Admittedly the vast majority of the members of AMPTP make their nut from movies and TV but the big six could practically take a year off and not hurt too much. CBS is probably the worst off in that regard.