Impending Writers Strike Now Official

The impending strike in Hollywood by the Writers Guild Association is now official. As Reuters reports, this will mark the first strike by the WGA since 1988, which caused over $500 million in losses to the industry. The strike will immediately mark the loss of contributions by over 12,000 writers, causing all soap operas and late-night talk shows to go into reruns, among other programs.

Experts predict that a 22-week walkout will incur at least $1 billion in economic losses. This will affect over 200,000 employees that service the industry, which contributes over $30 billion of economic activity for Los Angeles County alone.

The major point of contention throughout the negotiations has been residual fees for writers from DVD and digital download revenues. The WGA says that the total compensation package sought by writers would cost the studios $220 million over three years, a small percentage of the $24.4 billion in revenues generated by U.S. DVD sales and rentals just in the last year, according to the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.