The Effect Of The Writers Strike On The Economy

The Writers Guild of America strike (WGA) is having a vast effect on the economy. The strike is between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and the WGA which is looking for a new contract. Not only are the writers and actors being affected by the strike other people are also being affected. It is a wide spread problem that is having a trickle down effect. The WGA strike is a complex problem including the history, separate sides, the cost of the strike and the effect on the entertainment industry.

The 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike is a strike by the Writers Guild of America, East and the Writers Guild of America, West that started on November 5, 2007. The WGAE and WGAW are two labor unions representing film, television and radio writers working in the United States. Over 12,000 writers joined the strike. The strike is against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers a trade organization representing the interests of 397 American film and television producers... The current strike has lasted 10 weeks and 2 days, as of January 16, 2008. The last such strike in 1988 lasted 21 weeks and 6 days, costing the American entertainment industry an estimated $500 million ($870 million in 2007 dollars). (wikipedia.org)

Because of the large amount of money being lost it can easly be seen how this can affect many lives. It is a drain on our already drained economy. Such a wide spread problem cannot easily be fixed or ignored. Some people have already come up wth different and creative ways to survive during the strike.

This is not the first time a stike has occurred, the last strike was in 1988, which caused much of the same problems. As detailed in Showbuzz,

The 1988 strike by the Writers Guild of America did not produce so many fresh jokes. For one thing, the airwaves were filled with reruns. And not too much was funny. The strike lasted 22 weeks, reportedly cost the industry $500 million, and caused hardship for individual strikers. "People lost their houses, they weren't able to send their kids to college," Dick Wolf, executive producer of Law and Order, told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2001, when a similar strike threatened (but didn't materialize.) Some were forced to adjust in creative ways. Fran Drescher and her husband Peter Marc Jacobson (later co-creators of "The Nanny") launched a good business, Loaf & Kisses Gourmet Croutons, which kept going. (http://www.showbuzz.com)

With knowledge of a previous strike it is hard to fathom how Hollywood could be caught off guard again. Perhaps the entertaiment industry should have lerarned from past mistakes with such a large amount of money lost in 22 weeks. To this day some people have not recoved from the 1988 strike. Although the strike of 88' was such a huge hit to the ecomy it gave way to some of the telivison shows and genre we watch today, show buzz writes,

To fill the hours with something other than repeats, the networks looked to what was then alternative programming. So-called news magazines such as CBS' "48 Hours" rose to prominence during the strike. And Fox picked up a show called "Cops" from a local station, and put it on its Saturday night lineup, where it remains, 20 seasons later, the longest-running of what is now being called reality television. Some say that the strike helped create this peculiar genre of unscripted shows, which fill much of the primetime schedule and, if there is another strike in 2007, is likely to take up even more. (http://www.showbuzz.com)

With the rise of reality television as a form of entertainment today some good could be seen coming from the 1988 strike as the reality television industry is now a multi million dollar industry adding to the economy. With such shows as Survivor, American Idol and the amazing race are some of the most watched shows on television today. Shows such as 49 hours gave way to similar shows such as 60 minutes, dateline and 20/20. When the strike of 1988 ended the writers did not get all they demeaned for example, a raise in payment for overseas broadcasted reruns. The main aspect of the dispute is whether the writers would be paid for new rising technologies and Medias where their work may be viewed. This is the main aspect of the strike going on today.

Every three years the WGA negotiates for a new contract. After not being able to come to an agreement on their contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers they began their strike. Both sides of this conflict have valid points. One of the main issues is payment shares on DVD residuals as Michael Cieply states,

The leaders said, for instance, that it would pay only $250 for a year's reuse of an hourlong program streamed on the Web, in contrast to the $20,000 currently paid for a network rerun. They also said the new proposal did not change the company's proposed payments for downloaded films and shows. (The producers have offered writers the same residual rate they get for DVDs, which works out to 0.36 percent of wholesale revenues, which amounts to pennies per DVD but tens of thousands of dollars on the millions of copies of even modest hits; writers are seeking a rate of 2.5 percent.) The guilds also said the companies refused to grant them union jurisdiction over original content produced for the Internet. Jurisdictional issues have been a little-discussed hot button in the negotiations. Guild leaders have fought to assert their hold over larger swaths of what their letter described as "multinational conglomerates," including units that produce reality television without guild writers, even as company executives have insisted on keeping union authority confined to their traditional movie and television businesses. (/www.nytimes.com)

Many writers in the WGA go though long periods of unemployment which they rely on re-airing of their work as their sole income for that time period. What the WGA is asking for a higher percentage to be paid to the writers .They would also like to raise the percentage that would be received for DVD sales as well as worked broadcasted aver the internet. The AMPTP states that the rising production and marketing cost are the reasons that the current percentage should remain the same as well as be applied to all Medias other then television where their works can be broadcasted. One of the main problems that has come up since 1988 is the rise of the internet. With such services such as Itunes. You tube and IPTV, giving viewers the ability to stream broadcasts of television shows and movies straight to hand held devices such as cell phones and I pods. The WGA contract as it stands now does not include payment percentage for any of these Medias. Many people have varying opinions on this topic. Jm