Business Insight Zone

The Hollywood writers’ strike has already dragged on for a while, and it shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. For all the bad news the strike brings — delayed shows, months of reruns, etc. — it may bring good news for the long term if it forces the t.v. business as a whole to rework its protocols.

Consider this piece from the New York Times:

Screenwriters Dig In for an Extended Brawl

. . . As the strike drags on, it appears increasingly likely that the television business, which is more sensitive than the movie industry to short-term dislocations, may be in for some deep changes. One possibility is that networks will use the walkout as an opportunity to end their costly practice of presenting new programs to prospective advertisers in an elaborate spring road show known as the upfronts. Instead, they might opt for simple visits to the main advertising agencies.

Networks could also use the strike to end a television development cycle that has them all chasing the same stars at the same time for fall programs that make their debuts en masse. Instead, they might develop new offerings throughout the year.

In this item from Silicon Alley Reporter, Michael Learmonth picks up on the theme that the strike may open the door for huge changes in the way that the networks operate:

Strike Upside: A Reformed TV Business

Hollywood would be all too happy to see the writer’s strike drag on, and put an end to two pillars of the TV business: the May upfronts and pilot season.

Network TV is in need of its own Reformation, and the Big Four have been waiting for an opportunity to collectively undergo one without drawing anti-trust attention. As the WSJ notes traditions that drive the business–pilot season, the upfronts, May and November “sweeps,” etc.–are vestigial and costly.

Of course, at the same time that the networks think along these lines, the writers want to change other industry protocols in ways that benefit them. Indeed, that’s the core mission of their strike, focused as it is on giving writers more money and a louder voice in the industry.

Bigger picture: changing protocols is hard, whether we’re talking about your own habits, the standard practices of a company, or the entrenched ways of an industry. Whether protocols work or don’t, and whether they’re implicit or explicit, over time they get heavily inscribed in our psyches. Those ruts are tough to escape. It’s just as true for a person’s smoking habit, for a company’s inefficient way of doing inventory, or for the television industry’s practice of doing “upfronts.”

Doing things a new way — installing new protocols — is hard enough when folks representing different functions agree on the changes to be made. It’s ten times as hard when they’re at each other’s throats, as we’re seeing in the case of the Hollywood writers’ strike.

More thoughts on protocols to come.

Category: Entertainment,The working life