Television
It's for real: Writers vote to end strike
By Diego Vasquez
Feb 13, 2008 - 10:09:52 AM

After three acrimonious months, much of them spent not talking, the writers and the studios have settled on a new three-year contract, and that contract has now formally been approved, with writers returning to work today.

The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of ending the strike, which was called Nov. 4, with some 92 percent of the ballots in support of the new contract, which affects some 10, 500 members of the Writers Guild of America. Roughly a third of WGA members voted, some 3,775.

The strike's ending means the Oscars, set for Feb. 24, will go on, and writers will be jumping back in to resume working on scripts for top shows like ABC's "Desperate Housewives" that ran out of fresh episodes some time ago.

They'll also be rushing to make up for lost time in developing scripts for the coming fall that can be hawked to media buyers this spring. That process has been delayed a good month or more.

The sense now is that the annual spring ritual of talking up fall hopefuls to media buyers will go on, though perhaps later than usual, and with less hoopla on the part of the networks.

What's unclear is just how the strike's disruption will play out come the fall.

Media buyers fear the networks, pressed for time, will roll out shows that would not get green-lighted otherwise, hoping for the best until they have a chance to polish up more promising series for midseason.

That could lead to a big dent in ratings.

The more immediate worry is where ratings will be heading between now and April, when buyers expect the networks to begin airing fresh episodes of their top shows. They could be about to tumble. (See today's "As the strike ends, ratings take a slide.")

To fend off such a slide, the networks are scrambling to get production rolling on what shows they can as soon as possible.

NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” which hasn’t had a fresh episode since November, will be back on Feb. 23, while writers for top shows like CBS’s “Two and a Half Men,” ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and Lifetime’s “Army Wives” hope to have new scripts ready in the next few weeks, with production on the series resuming soon after.

Media people expect four to six episodes of returning dramas and up to nine episodes of veteran comedies could be filmed in time to air this season. CBS says three of its sitcoms will have that many ready to go.

But there are some series that will not be producing any new episodes until fall because of strategic network decisions. Serialized dramas like Fox’s “24” and NBC’s “Heroes” tend to perform better when they air in long stretches without repeats.

A few weeks ago, that seemed possible. There had been some talk earlier in the strike of extending the regular TV season into the summer, but that now looks unlikely to happen.

So rather than bring back the shows with only a handful of episodes, the networks have decided to delay their returns until next season. In fact, “24” won’t be back until January 2009.

Similarly, ABC’s “Pushing Daisies” and “Dirty Sexy Money” and NBC’s “Chuck” likely won’t return until fall in order to give the shows a splashy relaunch backed by lots of marketing muscle. The networks believe the critically lauded shows can improve their ratings with better exposure, which they would not receive if they only came back for three or four episodes.

Other shows that have not been ordered back into production may face a more dire fate. The CW’s “Life is Wild” and CBS’s “Cane” have not received any more script orders, not a good sign for the fate of the low-rated shows.