Hollywood writers strike.....?

Question

I'm a bit confused and hope I can get a few opinions and information on this....I understand that you're basic shows are in danger of running reruns for sometime until this is settled. However, they are saying that shows such as David Letterman, Leno, SNL are more at "risk" since they are recorded live or on a rolling basis...so I guess my question is this...aren't David, Leno and the cast of SNL comedians in their own right? Wouldn't we expect them to write most of their own material, which means that they they shouldn't suffer as much as drama shows? Or am I on the wrong line of thinking?

By the way, I don't watch TV much at all (only to fall asleep and a few shows a week amounting to about 5 hours of TV a week if that much).

Answer 1

Well, they don't write the entire show themselves. There is a lot of work in a daily topical show, and the workload and hours are crazy. One man could never do it. Both Letterman and John Stewart have backed their union, so I doubt they will do much writing. They have videos on youtube stating their support for WGA. If you examine the issue, the writers are being reasonable. They just want to be paid for their work. They are being ripped off, since the studios don't pay them anything to broadcast their work online. That's stealing - I am sure the studios will be sued for that after all this is done. That's illegal downloading, any average person would get busted for that. If I download a song, I pay for it - simple. Why can't they pay the creators the same way that musical writers are paid?

Films are going to be affected too. Many films do not have final scripts, and cannot finish.

Answer 2

Daily shows such as David Letterman, Jay Leno etc are topical i.e they write fresh material everyday. This is why most times they are comments on the happenings of the day such as the political debates etc. They contribute, by doing some writing themselves and also provide ideas on what they which to talk about that day but they don't write the majority of the work. Most of these guys are in meetings etc with writers, management, producers which kind of precludes them from sitting at a desk and writing their own material to encompass, as in the case of Letterman and Leno, 1 hour every week day.
Dramas rely on scripts too BUT in their case, those plots lines are usually developed way in advance and scripts for them can be stockpiled because they are only producing a weekly show vs a daily broadcast show. So for example, a script for say CSI Miami is written and filmed sometime in Oct but it will not be shown until March. . So they have more leeway vs. a daily produced show.
Hope with clarifies it somewhat.

Answer 3

In addition to them being in need of fresh daily material, even though they themselves are part of the writing staff and would still work as hosts of the the shows, as they are also part of the writer's union they are also on strike and cannot write new material for their own shows as that would be "crossing the picket line" so to speak.

I hope this helps.