I was reading this weeks copy of Entertainment Weekly and they did a feater on the Writers’ Strike. One of the major issues the writers want resolved is residuals and compensation for their content used on the Internet. The last strike like this was back in 1988 if I remember right and lasted several months. The lasting effects were years of recovery for the TV and Movie business. Don’t get me started on the fact that it created the whole reality TV genre. But when TV shows started going to re-runs people found other things to do. Many shows, especially ones struggling to get their legs under them never recovered from the strike. Entertainment Weekly suggested that there’s an alternative now that people didn’t have before: the Internet. The irony is that this could be the catalyst that pushes the Internet ahead of TV.
To be honest, I’m hoping for a prolonged strike. Don’t get me wrong, I love TV but I make my living on the Internet. And I’m just curious to see what effect this will have. Will advertisers starving for eyeballs spend more online during and after the strike while theres little or not content on TV? We won’t know for sure what kind of effect this will have until January or February when scripts for popular shows finally run out. Daily shows will be the first to suffer, but they should all have troubles come the beginning of 2008. If the strike lasts more than say, 2-3 months it could literally be the end of new TV until next year. Even then it’ll have trouble rebounding.
My advice to the rest of you web publishers out there and that’s get ready for a surge in Internet usage in early 2008 or even sooner. Take advantage and capture some of that traffic and turn it into loyal readers. I’m going to give it my best shot.
Technorati Tags: Writers Strike, Web Publishing, Traffic
2 
chrispian Says:
Indeed. If their content is being used then they deserver proper compensation. Everyone else is getting paid from it so should they.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
3 DiscountSupplements Says:
Should there be more details about the idea instead of leaving them blank for us?
October 20th, 2009 at 4:05 am
About Chrispian
That is an intersting notion that I haddn’t considered. It would be ironic for the writers to boost the medium that they are trying to get a peice of and damage their own in the process. Granted I think they deserve a piece, since with the advent of streaming media and the boom of DVD sales, syndication is a whole new ballgame.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:10 pm