Writers’ strike guarantees repeats

Hollywood writers started their strike Monday, and if you watch even a bit of television, yes, you do care.

The first impact on viewers started Monday night, with repeats of late-night shows including “Late Show With David Letterman,” “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report.”

The Writers Guild of America covers the people who write for scripted shows on TV, feature films, and the monologues and gags on late night.

Their fight with the studios and networks boils down to two things: The writers want a bigger cut of DVD sales – their current deal goes back to 1988, before there were DVD sales – and they want some payments when shows they write get streamed, downloaded or used on Web sites. Currently, they get nothing.

This strike could go on and on; some people are predicting well into 2008. The last time Hollywood writers struck was in 1988, and it lasted more than five months.

The biggest impact will be on television, in large part because there’s so much more of it, though films will eventually feel it, too.

Here’s a breakdown of what to expect if the strike is anything like 1988’s:

Late night: These shows write and shoot daily, and, as Stewart said last week, they’ve used up all their words. Repeats start immediately.

Sketch shows are in the same boat. “Saturday Night Live,” for instance, will start repeats this weekend.

Daytime: The daily game shows, and the talkers like “Oprah” and “Ellen,” will cruise along without change. But the soaps will be the next group to feel the strike. They have about a month of shows already shot, then they’ll go into repeats or best-of episodes.

Prime time: Network series all have about two months of finished episodes or scripts on hand. Under normal circumstances, that would take them into January or February, depending on how many holiday specials and repeats get aired in December.

It’s likely now that the networks will find ways to hold all those fresh episodes until after the holidays. So, here comes even more season specials, movies and clip shows.

Reality shows: Writers for reality and game shows aren’t covered by the WGA contract, so all the broadcast networks have stockpiled both genres to fill large chunks of the schedule come early 2008.

That includes everything from Fox’s powerhouse “American Idol,” which is already scheduled to return in January, and ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” to CBS’ new “Million Dollar Password” and something CW is planning called “Farmer Wants a Wife.”

Cable: Production schedules are different for every show. For instance, FX’s “The Shield,” which is slotted to start a new season in mid-spring 2008, has already finished production, while FX’s “Nip/Tuck,” which just began its season, would only have 14 of its 22 episodes shot.

Meanwhile, first-season cable hits like AMC’s “Mad Men” and USA’s “Burn Notice,” which were scheduled for follow-up launches in late spring or summer 2008, are on indefinite hold.

Feature films: All the studios say they have a healthy supply of finished scripts, so moviegoers shouldn’t notice a decline in volume, at least right away.

However, writers of animated features are the only film writers not affected by the WGA strike, so if it lasts into 2008, the studios are likely to ramp up animated production to make sure their pipelines stay full.

That might explain the sudden appearances of “Shrek 4 and 5” and “Bee Movie, Part Deux.”