Rushfield: The WGA Strike is Coming
The countdown begins. Inside the fomenting anger, neglect and regret
Before we begin today’s regularly scheduled programming, I wanted to share Ankler news. Yesterday, we hit a nice milestone in Ankler history and signed up our 30,000th subscriber — 150 percent growth in 10 months. It’s a mountain to have climbed for what was just a little newsletter not too long ago. I am grateful that The Ankler’s mix of un-compromised reporting and analysis resonate with so many in this tight community and have become a vital part of the conversation.
I am doubly appreciative that in this year, as we've grown and added new voices (not just me shooting my mouth off), you stayed, told your friends and colleagues about us, and helped us fulfill our pledge to create something meaningful, smart and fun. Thank you all from atop Mt. 30,000. As we eye the next peak, give me a holler at richard@theankler.com with any thoughts or ideas, as ever. Always love to hear from you. And now, on with the show.
In last week's piece about Hollywood's looming powder kegs, I touched on a lot of potential disasters, some slightly, plausible, others far-fetched.
But after a week's reflection, one of them stands out as an actual asteroid hurtling our way: the prospect of a strike kicked off by the WGA.
The likelihood of the strike happening, as of this writing seven months off when the current deal expires next May, seems decent. Many I've talked to — on both sides — talk about it as a near certainty.
But let's be sober-minded (for now) and call the likelihood of a strike taking place 50/50. If it does happen, its potential for causing real mayhem is not inconsiderable. If the strike stretched beyond a brief walkout, as one exec friend described it, “It would be a disaster for the industry that will be felt for decades.” So that's fairly bad.
(In 2008, strikers Greg Daniels, Steve Carrell, Mindy Kaling, B.J. Novak, et al., shut down production of The Office and ripped NBC.)
So if the strike happens, call the chances that it will go on for a significant amount of time also —and very rough odds here this far out — 50/50. Do the math, and it’s a 25 percent chance that Hollywood is hit by another devastating cataclysm (it was 100 days last time). So you can go to bed tonight feeling secure that there's a roughly three out of four chance that Hollywood won’t get hit head-on by this asteroid.
But just in case it does... it’s worth taking an early peek at what all this fuss is about. And the disturbing fact that bubbling under this strike talk are some very real, industry-wide problems that are probably bigger than any one contract or strike can fix.