Don’t Feed the Monster
With the Daily Show off the air, it looks like it’s replacement has already surfaced on youtube, under the name newsbusted. It’s a bit raw, like early Craig Kilborn days, no guests as of yet, and a different bias, but the foundation is there.
Which got me thinking about the writer’s strike.
I haven’t paid too much attention to it (I’m not a writer), but Khayman sent me a post about it, “Strike by Suicide“, from Marc Andreessen of all people.
Marc’s fundamental point seems to be, given the uncertainty of the “new media” — the Internet as entertainment, is this a good time for Old Media executives to pick a fight with the writers about Internet residuals?
It seems both parties are deathly scared of the Internet — it’s eating their existing source of revenue & everyone is now scrambling to get a proverbial piece of the new pie.
But here’s the thing — it’s not writers vs. Old Media. That’s because writers are part of the Old Media.
Hollywood writers are far from the starving-artist, slaving for their art form (and, btw, who the hell considers “Two and a Half Men” an art form?)
With $500,000+ salaries, the question really is: is this a good time for the bourgeoisie writers to revolt against the aristocrat producers?
The last writer strike helped accelerate things into the direction of unscripted television.
There’s already a trend shifting entertainment away from TV. World of Warcraft players find the 20+ average hours per week to spend on it, by simply watching 20+ hours less of television. Most people I know spend more time dorking around on YouTube, following blogs of choice, and so on, with the trend getting larger & broader.
Given the lack of programming, making TV less of an option, you have to wonder if the internal Old Media feuding will hasten people exploring online forms of entertainment, and only help feed the Internet beast they’re worried of destroying them.
