I don’t know whether anyone has been following the Writers Guild of America strike over in the US, but it has been going on for around a month now. It hasn’t really affected me over in the UK. In fact, it hasn’t affected me at all. However, it does have an impact on television over in the US. They have been playing repeat after repeat after repeat of talk shows that require writers to come up with topical jokes.
The writers are taking a stand and want money from DVD’s and something called ‘the internet’, which is fair enough. Why should the studios get paid gazillions when the writers only get a small % of the profits? However, a problem with the writers striking is that shows have to shut down. This means that all the people behind the scenes are out of work. The make-up girl, the assistants and even the coffee guy all paying the price, while the writers strike because they want more millions.
A good soul named Conan O’Brian who hosts his own talk show, has took it upon himself to PAY for those people who have not been paid since the strike began. I don’t know whether he is doing it for the brownie points, so he can turn around and say ‘I am paying you dammit, work!’, or whether it is because he feels for the people who work on his show, and has a stupid amount of money to help them.
