theabstruseone:
I want to push back on the narrative that’s already going around that the “Reality TV” boom was because of the writer’s strike. It’s straight-up anti-labor propaganda attempting to claim the strike didn’t do anything.
And it’s blatantly false.
1) Survivor premiered in 1997, Big Brother in 2000, Amazing Race in 2001, American Idol in 2002, and that’s just the big-name network ones I can think of off the top of my head.
The last WGA strike was in 2007.
The reality TV boom was already in full gear long before the strike.
2) The 2007 WGA strike lasted from November 5, 2007, to February 12, 2008 - Three months and one week.
It takes a hell of a lot longer than that to develop, pre-produce, shoot, and edit a television show than that. No studios turned around a reality TV series in those 14 weeks.
This keeps being brought up because they want to dismiss efforts of the workers by claiming the studios can quickly pivot to something that doesn’t need writers (bullshit) and blame what’s seen by many as a blight on American entertainment, reality TV, on the WGA strike.