Pen is mightier than Hollywood

Late night talk shows and awards ceremonies fall flat as Hollywood writers strike work

Nishi Malhotra Washington  

In a land that thrives on film and television entertainment and provides a good deal of it to the rest of the world as well, the film and television writers' strike in Hollywood which began on November 5 2006, has almost crippled the prolific industry, not to mention the media boomtown of Los Angeles. As a result, hundreds and thousands of props and costume companies, make-up artists, small and big actors, studio workers, caterers, etc., are out of work and forced to survive on their savings. Christmas 2007, hard enough for most Americans with the shadow of a recession looming over the economy, was made more difficult not just for the 12,000 striking writers but all the other entertainment hacks thrown out of jobs because of the domino effect of the strike.

American television audiences, holed up at home this cold winter, have been surviving on a fare of re-runs of popular shows and DVD rentals for two and a half months now. And let's face it, the politics of the country isn't the same either with late night show hosts Jay Leno, David Letterman and Conan O Brien, to name just a few, left dumbfounded without their writers, unable to come up with wisecracks about the Democrat and Republican contenders for the primary races, or putdowns about their favourite whacking boy, George Bush. Take away the smart, creative writing that goes into getting laughter and tears from the audience and the show hosts are no more than shifty-looking anchors making desperate attempts to ad lib — delivering, most of the time, off-centre jabs rather than knockout punches.

So what is it that the writers want and why aren't they getting it? The Writers' Guild of America East (WGAE) and the Writers' Guild of America West (WGAW) are two labour unions representing 12,000 writers who write for films and television and radio shows in America. They are striking against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), a trade organisation that represents the interests of 397 American film and television producers, chief among which are such hallowed entertainment names as — CBS Inc., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, NBC Universal, News Corp/Fox, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, the Walt Disney Company and Warner Brothers. 

Every three years the Writers' Guild renews or renegotiates the basic contract under which its members are employed by these companies. An impasse occurred during the last round of negotiations with the AMPTP in November 2007, as a result of which the Guild authorised its members to go on strike. The key points of contention boiled down to three issues: DVD residuals, union jurisdiction over reality and animation programme writers, and compensation for media content written for or distributed through new digital technology over the internet.