Strike!

I’m a big fan of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. I finally got around to watching the new episodes last night, and for each show I wound up shutting it off after 5 minutes. They were awful.

I don’t blame them, of course. In case you didn’t know, there’s a writers strike going on. As a future screenwriter myself (maybe), I support them completely. Let me give you a little run-down of what the fuss is all about. Aside from the usual problem of not getting paid enough, anything that they write that goes online is classified as “promotional materials” and doesn’t earn them any royalties. This isn’t limited to ads or anything, it can include whole episodes. It’s just unfair.

So back to the point at hand. I don’t blame either of the shows for stinking. In fact, they were pretty good for shows without a writing team. But I won’t be going back to watching them until the strike is over, and that may be sooner than we could have hoped for. The People’s Choice Awards were a complete bomb because of the strike, even though they never do well, but the Golden Globes are now being cancelled too. These awards shows bring in something like $80 million dollars for the area, and they’re starting to feel the crunch. Let’s hope they finally get the message.