Will The Writers Strike Lead To A Web Boom?

In the NY Times, David Carr writes wonders whether a strike by TV writers is in their best interest. He thinks that we’ll just go online for content:

…YouTube isn’t going on strike. So the typical American household will not run out of content any time soon. (Although I will grab a lantern and pitchfork just about the time that the strike threatens to hold up the next plot twist in “Lost.”)

That would be a problem for the writers. Market leverage derives from scarcity, and while writers argue that original work is the only way to rise above the clutter, the spread of nonfiction and reality programming — most of it not covered by contracts — has made professionally written programs less critical.

“We are in totally uncharted territory right now,” said John Rash, author of the Rash Report, a newsletter about television ratings, and an executive at Campbell Mithun, an advertising firm in Minneapolis. “The strike in 1988 was B.C. — before cable explodes, before computers, before this vast fragmentation and fracturing of the media landscape.”

…Laugh all you want, but the news diet of a vast number of younger viewers is about to shrink. Talkers like Bill O’Reilly and Larry King will continue to bloviate, network news will dutifully report the day’s events and even Jay Leno may be able to fill the hour (although the prospect of his working without snappy cue cards isn’t a pleasant one). But younger viewers have come to depend on Mr. Stewart for news beyond what’s on their Facebook page.

“Some people are able to use those programs as a shorthand to learn about events and see them lampooned at the same time,” Mr. Rash said, adding: “It is a bad time for Colbert and Stewart to go dark. Something will be lost in the run-up to Iowa and New Hampshire if they are not around.”

NY Times