After three days of talks, the sense around Hollywood is that the nearly four-week old writers strike could be over in a matter of days, with the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers coming to terms on a new contract that would put TV script writers back to work.
But then the question arises, how soon before viewers begin seeing fresh episodes of shows such as NBC’s “The Office” and CBS’s “NCIS,” which have run out of original episodes, or ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” and Fox’s “House," which are close to running out?
The answer, in brief: not for some time. Think in terms of months, perhaps not before late February or March.
Here's a timeline. It takes about three weeks to write and produce original episodes of half-hour comedies and about five weeks for hour-long dramas, studio executives tell Media Life. Then it takes another two or three weeks for post-production editing.
Dramas take longer because they employ so many more people, 200 or so.
Were the strike to end today, it would take some time to get everyone back to work and up to speed. Dramas, unlike sitcoms, are often shot on remote locations, which have to be scouted out, and their shooting schedules are more complicated as a result. All that takes more man hours to work out, which translates into time.
Comedies take less time because they are shot on sets and the writing is often done on the fly, with scripts going through heavy rewrites and tweaks in the days leading up to filming and as the actors are going over their lines.
If in fact the WGA and the AMPTP are close to settling, the most likely scenario is that the two sides would come to an agreement in principle that would send the writers back to work immediately. The groups' negotiating teams would then sit down and work through the details of a final contract that would then be put before WGA members for a vote.
The writers would then likely work through much of the holiday season, skipping their usual two-week end-of-year break.
In either case, an end to the strike or not, the networks are in for a break in December, a month in which primetime schedules are loaded up with reruns and holiday specials anyhow.
But come January and February their primetime lineups are in for trouble as more series run dry of original episodes.
The one exception will be Fox.
It will be well-stocked with original episodes of animated hits like “Family Guy” and “Simpsons,” which are in production months in advance. It also has a stockpile of episodes for new midseason series like “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.”
Then it's got its biggest gun of all in “American Idol,” which returns in January with the promise of once again dominating the second half of the season as broadcast TV's No. 1 show.
The outlook for the other Big Four networks is mixed in the event the strike is settled in a matter of days.
They can pace themselves through January and February as they wait for new episodes by parsing out what's left of originals filmed before and during the strike. And each has some returning shows with fresh episodes, like ABC’s “Lost,” which is wrapping up principal photography this week on its eighth episode, and CBS’s “New Adventures of Old Christine” and NBC’s “Medium.”
They can further pad schedules with game shows and reality shows.
In that scenario, based on the strike ending shortly, the impact on primetime ratings would be modest. There would be enough original content in January and February to keep ratings at decent levels until the new episodes came on.
Late-night, though in reruns for nearly four weeks, would rebound quickly, with writers back on the job in days and new episodes airing almost immediately.
Daytime would feel no impact. A big worry has been that with an extended strike daytime dramas would be forced into reruns. But that point has not come yet, and with a quick end to the strike they would not be disrupted.
