- Title: Trump, streaming likely winners in potential TV writers' strike
- Date: 29th April 2017
- Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (APRIL 28, 2017) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) JONATHAN HANDEL, ENTERTAINMENT ATTORNEY AND CONTRIBUTING EDITOR AT THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, SAYING: "If there if there a strike that lasts for any duration viewers, will be driven to digital platforms like Netflix. Some of them won't return to linear platforms. We saw this in 1988 when some viewers migrated to cable, never quite came back to broadcast. We saw this 10 years ago as people started to look at YouTube and play with apps and video games and all this kind of stuff. Now the alternatives are just, you know, they are multitudinous and the more you train people that they can do without something, the more they learn that lesson, the more you atomize the audience, the harder it is to bring it back together in one place again."
- Embargoed: 13th May 2017 03:19
- Keywords: writers talks script union labor Writers Guild of America strike guild Hollywood
- Location: LOS ANGELES AND LOS GATOS, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES/NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
- City: LOS ANGELES AND LOS GATOS, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES/NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment,Television
- Reuters ID: LVA0066EG9VLZ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: CONTAINS CONVERTED 4:3 MATERIAL
U.S. President Donald Trump may finally get a break. Late-night talk shows and topical satire, including NBC's "Saturday Night Live," will be the first hit if the Writers Guild of America (WGA) goes on strike next week in a stoppage that media analysts say could send viewers flocking irreversibly to streaming services.
Contract talks are likely to go down to the wire this weekend to avert a strike by some 9,000 TV and movie writers should they fail to reach a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) by Monday (May 1) night.
"If there if there a strike that lasts for any duration viewers, will be driven to digital platforms like Netflix. Some of them won't return to linear platforms," said Jonathan Handel, an entertainment lawyer and contributing editor for the Hollywood Reporter who wrote a book about the last WGA strike in 2007-2008.
Neither side is commenting publicly on the talks, but any strike would quickly affect productions like CBS Corp's "The Late Show," Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" and NBC's "Saturday Night Live," which rely on teams of writers to pen topical jokes.
Trump and his aides have been a chief target of such barbs, including "Saturday Night Live" impressions by Alec Baldwin and Melissa McCarthy.
The last WGA strike - a 100-day stoppage in 2007-2008 - cost the California economy an estimated $2.1 billion in lost output according to a Milken Institute review. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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