Woke up this morning, got myself a coffee ("...mama always said...")
And still no word of a strike.
But we don't need a word anymore. It's a fait accompli. There will be a strike. The only questions now: When, and for how long?
A couple of overnight developments: The Writers Guild and studios broke off talks yesterday hours before the WGA contract expired at midnight, and none are rescheduled. This is worse than ominous, whatever that might be. The WGA also posted word of a meeting on its website yesterday, telling members to show up at the LA Convention Center tonight (10 p.m., NYC time.) There's every expectation writers will be told a.) why they're going on strike; and b.) how to prepare for something that could, quite literally, extend months, if the '88 walkout is any guide.
Yes, it's bad, very bad, and you don't need to cruise the trade paper websites this morning to know that. There's a deja-vu-all-over-again element to this, because the writers want to double their coin received from DVD sales, and the studios have told them what cliff to jump off of. (It was pretty much the same issue that lead to the '88 strike - a fight over videocassette sales.) In these brutal standoffs, it's always easy to glimpse the future because protagonists are providing one. Foremost, studios/writers see a vast profit center in DVD sales - and one that probably will dwarf the nice revenue stream they're getting now. Second, studios/writers also know that the TV set - that nice old fashioned toaster in your living room - will recede into the past while New Media and its minions will crowd the future. Take the simple notion of watching, let's say, a show on your computer: "Won't happen," the All-knowing Pundits once said. "People will never watch TV on their computer."
Yeah, right. And they'll never read newspapers on them either. (The picture to your right, by the way, is of Patric Verrone, boss of the WGA/West and longtime "Futurama" scribe who will soon have another credit - as the man who called the strike of 2007.)
Fact is, the networks (ABC in particular) have established marvelous web components, where watching a show is simply far preferable to watching it in "real time" on the tube. It's a great model and it's growing - rapidly. The networks know it. Writers know it. Everyone knows it. Now, the writers want a piece of the action - and who can blame them? (By the way, don't scorn all TV writers - a few certainly are millionaires, but many, if not most, are waitering on the side.)
The Studios have dug in their heels because the Studios - to a large extent - will control that future. They'll lose control of it (or think they will) if they boost writers' residuals from this realm - a Writers Guild pact, by the way, will also serve as a template for forthcoming actor and director contracts as well, which is another reason why they're gonna let this strike happen.
So the strike will come. Tomorrow? Maybe? Next week? Bet on it.