There's a good article about the Writers' Strike over at
Forbes.com. Lacey Rose reports:
"Americans now spend nearly 27 hours a month online, up 8% from just two years ago, according to comScore Media Metrix. And advertising dollars are following: Internet ads registered a 17.7% increase in the first half of 2007, to $5.5 billion, while the broadcast networks saw ad spending slip 3.6%, to $11.8 billion, during the same period, according to TNS Media Intelligence, a division of Taylor Nelson Sofres that tracks ad spending."In this fight for parts of the Web Pie, the striking writers have set up their own blog,
United Hollywood. Interestingly, when I jumped to their site, the top post was about the very Forbes article by Lacey Rose that I'd just read. Small world.
At any rate,
United Hollywood should prove to be very entertaining. Already today, there's the post about
Steve Carell calling in sick to The Office - he was suffering from "enlarged balls."
And, in an
earlier post by the Strike Captain, an explanation on why the Web is so important that it's worth this level of fight:
"The other big reality is that the future of ALL film and television is INTERNET bound, a paid advertising medium for which each and every Guild member currently has ZERO financial participation. With entertainment industry executives and studios raking in exponential profits every year and hiding much of those profits through creative accounting and fuzzy math, it is ESSENTIAL that, as members of the WGA, we stand up for what is only reasonable and just. The studios have forced us into this position through their greed and hubris. The attitude at the executive level often is that these movies and TV shows write themselves when in reality the obscene profits they are making always start with us, the writers.?"
I'm going to continue following the writer's strike, since without writers what do you have? Surely all these reruns already appearing everywhere should be making all the Suits sweat ....
Personally, I want the writers to get everything that they want. Period. And while I'm at it (it's my blog, after all) I don't want another reality show - ever - and I'd like someone to just go ahead and formalize the official Law&Order Network. It would make it so much easier for me to find Bobby.
One last thing. As a writer who provides content on a daily basis to various areas of the web, the news that publication on the Internet is apparently akin to the Gold Rush - or here in Texas, wildcatting for oil, well ... it's good news.
I believe in the written word, and however bad some of the sitcoms out there may be -- they are written. There are scripts. Reality TV avoids this problem. There's no need for a script when you put a group of people on an island to eat horrid things, or have them race around the world for a prize. Ditto, the dating competitions. And the dancing ones. And the singing ones. 
