Writers strike and my shows

It's January 2, 2008, and the late night TV shows are to start airing new episodes tonight. David Letterman will be the only one to have his guild writers with him, as he owns his show and negotiated his own agreement with the WGA.

I looked up Wikipedia to see how long the daily soap operas could run. I knew they have scripts several months in advance, but the strike has been on since November 5, 2007. According the this Wikipedia article, the soap operas only have scripts thru January 2008. So maybe we'll be looking at daytime TV reruns soon, too.

Surprising to find in that same article was the news that The Daily Show and The Colbert report would start airing new episodes on January 7, 2008 - without their guild writers. This USA Today article stated, In a joint statement, Stewart and Colbert said: "We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence."

What is TV coming to?

Though I am currently a non-union on-camera actress, the fact that production stopped on so many TV shows have stopped production is not good news for one who wants to work. However, I support the writers as they have very reasonable demands. Though how long is this going to continue if the studios are strong-arming their shows back into production without WGA members?

Hopefully, it's simply a matter of time before a settlement is agreed upon. Until then, we may have to suffer thru some less desirable television programs.