Adding to the tension is the prospect that actors may join the stoppage in July when their contract comes up for renewal. That is cause for a lot of unease in Los Angeles, where the mayor has predicted a prolonged dispute could cost his moviemaking city billions of dollars. But it's not as if Australian viewers won't notice if the people who pen our favorite shows join the picket lines. Already, Australia can stand by for a big swell in the quota of reality programs coming out of America. The US networks have been expecting this showdown since last year and have snapped up plenty of new reality concepts, causing some American television reporters to remark on the preternatural calm with which some executives are greeting the threat of a strike.
Reality shows are lowcost ratings successes and they are strikeproof because they are scriptless.
Sabrerattling executives have suggested the trend might extend beyond any stoppage. Viacom owns the CBS network and various other media holdings. Certainly the last writers' strike, a 22week standoff in 1988, witnessed a decline in the hours devoted to scripted dramas and comedies in favor of news magazines such as 60 Minutes . Cops and America's Most Wanted were also developed in response to the 1988 strike. This time around, networks have been stockpiling scripted shows in a bid to minimise strike damage.