Have you noticed that earth-shattering
writer’s strike going on?
Nope, neither have I.
November 14th, 2007 ~ Current events
Isn’t the first rule of labor leveraging that if going out on strike would only make people notice how little they need you, you don’t want to go out on strike? I’m wondering if anyone told the television writers that.
The writers’ strike has been going on for a week now. No, make that a couple weeks. Or a month, maybe? The fact is, I don’t know how long it’s been going on, because I don’t watch much primetime television anymore, and I don’t know many people that do. If you did, you still wouldn’t be noticing the change — I’ve heard that it’s the soaps and the nighttime stuff like Leno, Letterman and the Daily Show that have had to go into reruns. I know that someone must be watching these things, but I would bet that they shrug and watch reruns, or put in a DVD, or even (saints be praised!) turn the television off.
I don’t want to act like television writing isn’t an important job. It’s just that television … well, what can you say? I think American audiences are just getting fatigued. I don’t say that it’s a better world for the fact that youngsters now are more likely to watch the same DVD over and over, or spend all their time with a computer game or a cell phone they can message on. But at least it gives these guys a little more freedom. With the DVD option, you’re able to do things on your own timetable, and know what you’re going to see. With the computer games and cell phones, at least you’re doing something, not just watching people you don’t know doing things that probably would never happen.
It may not be better, really. But it’s different, and it’s one of the ways the mass entertainment world is changing too fast for the industries that built them to keep up. This article from Variety puts it like this:
Notably, “Lost” co-creator Damon Lindelof touched upon several of these points in a New York Times op-ed Sunday that bolstered the studios’ case as much as the guild’s. In it, he referenced fears that the traditional TV model is “dying” and experiencing a transformation that’s “nothing short of terrifying” — concerns this season’s tepid TV ratings have surely reinforced.
Given that uncertainty, both sides are in a sense negotiating from a position of weakness.
Yep. It may be a weaker position than they know. Turning off the TV has an interesting effect. It makes you wonder why you had it on in the first place.
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November 15th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I basically don’t watch TV, especially anything that takes writers. What little snippets of programs I have seen is garbage anyway. I don’t miss them at all.
American culture without TV? Now THAT’S fodder for a TV series! :)
November 16th, 2007 at 11:41 am
I admit I’m finding it hard to wean myself off of it. Television actually can be educational, thought-provoking, entertaining … but it’s like playing a slot machine anymore. The odds are getting slimmer and slimmer of finding anything that isn’t total mush.
Probably my best example of that (and a pet peeve that Greg is tired of hearing me harp on about) is what happened to A&E’s Biography show. When they were doing biographies of people who were actually interesting or important with just a few celebrities thrown in there, it was a truly great show. But somebody in corporate just decided that they had to start skewing more and more toward movie stars, and then eventually toward anyone who was currently enjoying their 15 minutes of fame for any reason whatsoever.
They even started up an entirely separate cable channel just for biographies. So do they *ever* do biographies of Maxfield Parrish, Alfred Nobel or Catherine the Great? Nope, too busy doing re-runs of Britney Spears, Snoop Dogg and the latest serial killer.
As the Wicked Witch of the West said, “What a world, what a world!”
November 18th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Interesting to hear what has happened to Biography. When I gave up on cable about 3 years or more ago, both that channel and the History channel were in a WWI & II phase. I just referred to them as the War channels…
November 18th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Oh, that’s far too general for A&E and History now. You don’t need to devote your programming to both world wars, just the second one. And not the whole war, just Adolph Hitler. And not all of Adolph Hitler’s life story, just anything you can attach his name to: Hitler’s Houseplants; Hitler’s Beagles; Hitler’s Snackfoods.
It’s idiotic.
November 18th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Still, after more than 3 years? One would think that even they would have become tired of the rerun topics by now…. sheesh