Hollywood Writers Strike Begins

The writers strike in Hollywood has now begun, after last minute emergency talks broke down last night. The WGA (Writers Guild of America) and AMTPT (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) were locked in secret meetings right up until 21:30 Pacific time on Sunday evening, and the strike officially began at 00:01 on Monday November 5th.

In a statement, the WGA said:

“The AMPTP made no response to any of the other proposals that the WGA has made since July. The AMPTP proposed that today’s meeting be ‘off the record’, meaning no press statements, but they have reneged on that.”

Nick Counter, president of the AMPTP retaliated by saying:

“Notwithstanding the fact that negotiations were ongoing, the WGA decided to start their strike in New York. When we asked if they would “stop the clock” for the purpose of delaying the strike to allow negotiations to continue, they refused.”

“We made an attempt at meeting them in a number of their key areas including Internet streaming and jurisdiction in New Media. Ultimately, the guild was unwilling to compromise on most of their major demands. It is unfortunate that they choose to take this irresponsible action.”

No further talks are scheduled and pickets are now up outside network and studio building such as the Warner Bros. lot and CBS Television City.

Movies are unlikely to be adversely affected right away, with the strike having to be long term before the film industry starts to feel the pressure. Instead it’s television that is going to be hit hard, with fast moving programmes such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report which use Guild writers the most immediate casualties.

Plus shows which are currently in the planning stages with only rough outlines for scripts are likely to get dropped or put back, with Heroes: Origins the first to spring to mind.

There’s enough scripts in producers lockers to mean movie fans will be fine for the whole of next year even if the strike drags on and on, let’s just hope the quality isn’t affected too badly…