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The last Hollywood writers strike, in 2007 and 2008, cost writers and other workers an estimated $772 million, while knock-on effects did more than $2 billion in damage to the broader California economy. Promising shows were hamstrung; promising movies were shot with half-finished scripts; promising careers were cut short.
But the biggest, most lasting impact was this: TV networks that needed to fill airtime turned to reality shows, in the process reviving the fortunes of the “Apprentice” franchise, which in turn helped ensure the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.
It seems unlikely that the current writers strike will be the making of another president. But just as with the previous strike, the longer this one goes on, the more likely its effects will be permanent and significant. Nor is that only a problem for writers; in the era of TikTok and YouTube, producers also have a lot on the line.
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In some ways, of course, Hollywood looks better positioned to last out a strike than it was 15 years ago. Last time around, story arcs were abruptly truncated midseason. Today, viewers no longer expect television to come packaged in 20-plus-episode bundles between September and May, and we are all used to shorter seasons. In theory, that means shows can be more easily delayed, rather than canceled or butchered. Yet delays still matter. However sympathetic viewers are to the strikers (and as a writer, count me among the sympathizers), we’re probably not going to use the time to finally read Proust or brush up our croquet game. Most of us want something to watch, and networks want to give it to us.
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Likely, that will mean a renewed focus on unscripted reality shows, just as it did in 2007. Such shows are cheap to produce, and there appears to be a nearly unlimited supply of Americans willing to humiliate themselves on camera in exchange for a long shot at fame.
But streamers also have options that the old studio chiefs didn’t: foreign shows and back catalogues of content. NBC couldn’t plug a hole in its 2007 lineup by piping in an Israeli thriller or some old episodes of “Little House on the Prairie” that wouldn’t command the same audience, or advertising dollars, as a new episode of an American show that could be discussed around tomorrow’s water cooler.
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That emphasis on novelty and mass-market appeal has faded in the era of 24/7 streaming services with massive libraries. We don’t all watch the same things all at once, or expect to. Even a top-rated show such as “Young Sheldon” enjoys less than one-quarter of the weekly viewership that “American Idol” did back in 2007, and of course audiences are still more fragmented on cable and streaming.
That leaves executives with smaller shoes to fill during a strike. They no longer hope to find one hit that can appeal to tens of millions of people; it’s fine to locate 10 shows that can appeal to a tenth of that number or, if they’re cheap enough, a hundred that can appeal to 1 percent of the old audiences.
And because we can watch whatever appeals to us — rather than whatever has enough mass appeal to earn tens of millions of eyeballs during prime time — we are more open to niche viewing, including things that other people have already seen. Netflix doesn’t even have the latest season of “Grey’s Anatomy,” but it still made the latest top 10 in Nielsen’s streaming ratings.
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A long strike gives executives the time — and the need — to figure out how to give us those substitutes. Which means that writers face a much greater risk than just the wages they’re losing every week the strike stays out; they risk teaching the bosses how to do more without writers even after the strike ends.
That still doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, to be clear. Writers suffered a great deal during and after the 2007 strike, but that strike also won the Writers Guild jurisdiction over “new media,” which includes streaming — and without that, a whole lot of writers would be a whole lot poorer right now. Collectively, it’s easy to argue that the short-term suffering paid off in long-term rewards.
But it’s worth noting that this time, both the writers and their bosses are facing a risk that they didn’t in 2007: a risk that viewers will exit Hollywood’s closed system entirely for social media apps such as TikTok and YouTube, which are already increasingly competitive with Netflix among younger audiences. It’s possible that for the writers, that will end up outweighing any benefits of a strike — but also possible that will be true for producers. Which means it’s in everyone’s interest to hammer out a reasonable deal before we learn to live without their services.
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