How a Hollywood writers’ strike can derail a great TV show

[TMC]

https://webcache.googleusercontent.c...&ct=clnk&gl=us

Despite all the critical acclaim, “Friday Night Lights” suffered in ratings. NBC aired the 15th and final episode of Season 2 in February 2008, mere days before WGA members voted to end the strike and return to work. Katims and his staff were unsure what this meant for them; their show had found itself on the bubble.

“We were left in this precarious situation,” Katims said. “The fact that the second season ended abruptly the way it did, that was … probably a contributing factor to why the show almost didn’t make it.”

That March, NBC worked out a Hail Mary deal: The network would share production costs for a third season of “Friday Night Lights” with DirecTV, the satellite service that would offer exclusive access to the show in the fall before the same episodes began airing on NBC the following February. The deal was unprecedented, a glimpse into the future.

At the time, Katims wasn’t thinking about “how radically things would be changing in television.” He was just relieved to keep telling this story, and the DirecTV deal gave him three seasons to get things back on track. He quickly did, with Season 3 jumping ahead nine months, all murders a distant memory. By the time “Friday Night Lights” ended in 2011, Katims said, “we got to do everything I would’ve ever wanted to creatively do with the show.”

Deals like the one NBC struck helped shape a new landscape. The WGA wasn’t sure what new media would look like at the time of the strike but fought for it anyway. “If we hadn’t won that — 50 percent of our work right now is on streaming services and platforms. We wouldn’t have been covered for that,” said Stiehm, the WGA West president.

Well into the streaming era, that landscape is less hazy. Shorter season orders and evolving hiring practices have “wreaked havoc with the way writers are paid,” according to Cynthia Littleton, co-editor-in-chief of Variety and author of “TV on Strike: Why Hollywood Went to War Over the Internet.” She referred to the ongoing negotiations as “part two” of what the WGA accomplished in 2008. They planted their flag in the world of streaming, and now “have to go many layers deeper and figure out, truly, how to change their compensation systems to meet the demands of the new moment,” she said.

In a statement alluding to talk of a potential writers’ strike, the AMPTP noted that “the goal is to keep production active so that all of us can continue working.” It said the represented companies “approach this negotiation and the ones to follow with the long-term health and stability of the industry as our priority.”

Writers, such as Thomas, might argue they are advocating for the very same thing.

“That’s the fight now,” he said. “To preserve and protect the very nature of what it is to build a career.”