Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Writers' Strike Finally Over

After a 100 day walk-out, the writers of the Writer's Guild of America voted on Tuesday to go back to work. 92.5 percent of the 3,775 voting writers chose to end the strike after many talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. On Sunday, a tentative three-year agreement was approved by the governing board of the guild, which led to the vote to end the strike. Part of the agreement deals with giving the guild a greater profit from the digital distribution of television shows and other entertainment written by its members.

The producer's alliance estimated that the strike cost about $285 million in lost wages to the guild members and $500 million to other film unions.

Via the New York Times.

My thoughts: I had heard rumors that the strike could be ended by yesterday (Monday), and I was disappointed when it wasn't. I realize why they waited, however: today was the 100th day of the strike. Everyone likes nice big round numbers. I'm just glad it's finally over, which means I can start enjoying The Office and Smallville once again, and LOST will run for more than 8 episodes.

-Update-
I just found this article that outlines which shows seem to be coming back and which are canceled after being off the air for so long. Thankfully, The Office has plans for about 8 new episodes for April and May. Some other shows, like Cavemen, the sitcom spawned from the Geico comercials, and Big Shots are dead, however.

6 comments:

christopher said...

Don't get to eager to watch all of your favorite shows. I'm sure some programs will not have survived the hiatus and will soon die.

Shows like House, which had episodes in the can to play through last week, will have no problem coming back, since they didn't go anywhere.

But shows like the Office have been off the air for three months. That's long time. I hope the Office comes back and does well, but I don't know that shows that were off so long will come back as strong.

Jeremy said...

I don't know how strong it will be, but I can't see The Office dying off. It has much too strong a fan base to allow that to happen. It might take a couple weeks to get a new episode out, then maybe another few to get back into the swing of things, but I foresee it jumping back into the thick of it after a little while.

Other shows, I'm not so worried about. :)

christopher said...

It seems it [The Office] is projected to come back in two or three weeks, according to Paul Lieberstien, writer and actor (Toby) for The Office.

Jeremy said...

I didn't see that, but I did see an article with a list of a lot of shows and whether they're planning to come back or not. I put a link in an update on the post.

christopher said...

Please consider adding a "recent comments" widget to your site so we can all see what the latest comments and discussion are. It would be pretty awesome.

Jeremy said...

That's a good idea. I'll look into it and check with the other guys about it. But I don't know how much good it will do right now; this is the longest discussion we've ever had. :)