From tvsquad

The first shows to be impacted by the strike will be the late-night comedies. I hope you have stockpile of David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, The Daily Show, and Stephen Colbert on your TiVo, because as of tonight, they will be in re-runs.

The next to be hit will be the soap operas, which film about two or three weeks ahead of time. Your favorite primetime shows likely won’t be affected until January sometime. The writers of Brothers and Sisters wrote a heartfelt blog post to their readers last night before they put pencils down, saying the episode they had feverishly worked to finish would likely air then.

I have seen some talk, and forgive me for not linking, but I have read about this widely over the weekend, that the networks will likely try to draw out the time they have with their remaining scripts, so we may see shows start to intersperse re-runs with the new episodes. It is also likely what we will see an increase in the airing of reality TV shows, unless the strike is resolved fairly soon.

The last WGA strike occurred in 1988, and lasted for 22 weeks. Shows like Cheers took major hits during the strike, with viewers tuning out and approximately 10% of reviewers never returning. The financial cost to the industry was $500 million. I can only imagine what that number looks like twenty years later.

Popularity: 1% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!