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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

going on strike in entertainment just makes us replace you

It's nice that the Hollywood writers are back to work, but you know what? I didn't miss them. Last year I watched quite a bit of television, but this year, with no new shows on, I just found other things to watch or do. I rented a lot more movies, I played a lot more video games, and I just generally just forgot about most of the sitcoms and other dramas I used to watch. I'm not sure I care anymore.

In the short term, I'm sure this strike will help the writers, but I wonder about the effects of the long term. Granted, this is about future internet TV earnings, which I am sure is where some people went for entertainment instead of TV, but will the overall levels of watching the shows they wrote show a net decrease over the next 5-10 years because of this strike?

Didn't the same happen when MLB players went on strike? Guess what...people found other things to do, and even worse, held a grudge. I don't have any stats to back this up, but I'm guessing that MLB audiences are still at a lower level then before the strike in 1994 . The long run consequences were surely disastrous. Did decreases in audiences cause decreases in endorsement contracts for baseball players, causing the players to resort to other means to try and up their game?

Now, of course, there are plenty of things in life I would care about if its workers went on strike, such as if Metra (the Chicago commuter trains) went on strike...but in entertainment, it just seems that it never helps workers in the long run.

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