Writers Strike finally Over
The WGA Signed a Deal on to End the Television and Film Strike
On February 12, the Writers Guild of Amerca finally came to an agreement on a deal to end the three-month strike.
After a three month strike, the Writers Guild of America is finally heading back to work.
On Tuesday Feb. 12, the members of the WGA reached a deal to end the 100-day strike, sending picketing writers back to the drawing boards, literally. While some television shows, like talk shows including Late Night with Conan O’Brien and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno already headed back to work as many as six weeks ago, they went back on the air without any help from professional writers.
When Will My Shows Return?
It seems that many networks have already made arrangements for when new episodes of their shows will be returning to television. While writers are set to return on February 13, CBS has said that shows such as How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men are set to return on March 17 while other shows, such as Cold Case and CSI are set to return in late March or early April.
As for ABC, it seems that their shows are not set to return until the 2008-2009 season begins in the fall. Some of the shows that are slated to return include Brothers and Sisters, Desperate Housewives, Pushing Daisies, Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty and Lost. Interestingly, there are also a number of shows that are not appearing, for now, on the fall agenda. These include October Road, Men in Trees and Big Shots.
On most talk daily shows, writers will be returning to work almost immediately and regular sketches will begin soon. As well, the Academy Awards are to air as scheduled.
This Isn’t the First, but Hopefully is the Last
The writers’ strike, which is believed to cost about $3.2 billion from the large television and film networks, lasted 100-days, coming just 53 days short of the longest writers’ strike in history in 1988.
Starting in March of 1988, the strike was mainly focused on concerns about residuals for hour-long television shows and royalties for episodes of shows that were airing in foreign countries. During the five month-long strike, over 9,000 writers were out of work and $500 million were believed to be lost.
Coming in at just one week less than the writers’ strike of 1988, the strike of 1960 lasted for a total of 20 weeks and six days. The January to June strike was over the right to a share of money for the writers for films that were sold to television networks to air as TV movies. To make matters worse, the strike of 1960 was also in the midst of an actor’s strike, meaning two separate deals needed to be settled before production could once again resume.
While thankfully there was no actor’s strike during the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike, we did lose three months of television and film production. Although most programs are set to resume soon, unfortunately, viewers may have to mourn the loss of the many less popular programs that did not make it through the strike.
