Outside of LA or New York, the writers’ strike that starts today is unlikely to affect you much (at least until the studios run out of original content they already have in the can). But here in this company town, it’s big news. Not only will writers and producers be affected, but the rest of the production staff — including gaffers, key grips and best boys (and other positions that I have no clue what they do) — will be out of work if production is put on hold.
In a nutshell, the Writers Guild of America (WGA), which represents the people who write for television and movies, is striking primarily over writers not receiving fair residuals for reuse of their work on DVD or on the internet. (Am I wrong to think that should be “Writers’ Guild”? Wouldn’t you think the writers would know the correct punctuation?) As it currently stands, writers now get only 0.3 percent of DVD profits, and receive nothing for online distribution of their shows, such as through the network websites.
What does the strike mean for us social marketers who do outreach to Hollywood writers to promote our issues? It’s not entirely clear yet, but one big change will be an increased emphasis from the networks on reality shows. Another is that web-based entertainment will likely come to the fore as bored viewers seek out new programming. Branching out and learning how to work with new media producers is imperative in any case, strike or no strike.
Lucky for the writers, the strike comes at the beginning of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and those who have always wanted to write the Great American Novel can come home from the picket line and join the over 100,000 people working to finish their 50,000-word novel by the end of the month.
Hopefully when they come back to work, there will still be people left who want to watch their shows.
Photo Credit: Neville_S
UPDATE: Here is a picture my son took of the strikers as we drove by CBS earlier today (not as many people there as I would have expected):
Photo Credit: A. Weinreich
Nedra helps nonprofits and public agencies create positive change on health and social issues through social marketing and transmedia storytelling strategies at Weinreich Communications since founding the company in 1995. She helps organizations make a difference for the populations they serve by strategically designing programs that draw on state-of-the-art behavior change techniques, digital media approaches and the power of stories. 
I will miss the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Hope they settle this soon. On the other hand I could use the time that I would ordinarily spend watching these shows to write my nanowrimo novel.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed., calls constructions like “writers guild” attributive nouns rather than possessive nouns, and the apostrophe is not required. See paragraph 6.23.
Maricello,
Thanks for looking that up for me. What service!
I was not familiar with NaNoWriMo, but it sure is fun to say. Could even be a pet name.