FOTV: A Prolonged WGA Strike Will Considerably Impact the TV Industry

Authored by Jay Baage on November 8, 2007 - 11:22am.

From Future of Television Forum 2007: If the WGA strike is not resolved this week, it could have a considerable impact on the industry. That was the consensus among television executives and experts on the Thursday afternoon panels at DMW's sold-out conference in NYC.

It would be impossible to have a relevant television conference this week without a discussion of the WGA strike over the split of Internet revenues.

While no single panelist offered a detailed prediction of how the WGA strike will affect the television industry, Shelly Palmer, Chairman of the Advanced Media Committee for the Emmy Awards, said that the strike might just be the beginning. Other guilds such as SAG are probably also considering a best way to fight for their fair piece of the Internet revenues as well.

“If this things doesn’t end this week, there is going to be a considerable impact on the television industry,” he said.

From the networks’ point of view, David Poltrack, Chief Research Officer, CBS (NYSE: CBS), recognized that the strike might have to make the network rethink its programming strategy.
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“If the strikes go on, what we will see is more and more of reality programming,” he said.

On a positive note, it was mentioned that the strike might actually speed up the transition to television 2.0 and new forms of compensation standards suitable for online and mobile video.

“I think the whole structure of the network TV business needs to be restructured, so the strike might make them move into the right direction,” said Conrad Riggs, Co-Executive Producer, Mark Burnett Productions.