Writer’s Strike: An Interesting Aside

Let me set the stage for you guys. I am at work. I have a raging headache, so raging that it is bordering on a migrane. I never get migranes. I feel like crap.

A girl in my office is using the typewriters 10 feet or less away from me. It’s not helping. I’m about to puke. So I’m covering my ears and trying to distract myself, so I’m looking at things related to LOST.

LOST just started released “mobisodes” — mobile episodes available exclusively for streaming/download on ABC’s website… essentially, there will be 10+ of these little 3-minute new clips (not from deleted scenes) which fill in little holes in the backstory of LOST. Loves it. So, me being me and knowing that LOST is full of clues and interesting facts, I log onto Lostpedia and look up the first mobisode, “The Watch.” And there, I find this:

The mobisode was released on November 6, 2007, the second day that the WGA had been on strike fighting for residuals from “new media” such as online and mobile distribution. However, the WGA had already worked out these details for the mobisodes on behalf of Lost, negotiating a contract with ABC Studios that essentially accomplished what the WGA is striking for across the board.

WELL. Isn’t that interesting! ABC Studios basically recognized that the Internet is going to play a larger and larger role in television in the future… and struck a deal! So answer me this, studios at large: If ABC Studios can strike a deal with LOST, why can’t you strike a deal with the WGA?

And for everyone who is saying this is the writers being greedy — the above proof that at least some studios realize they’re going to need to pay writers for Internet broadcast should serve as further proof that studios are being greedy and balking in the face of an inevitability which should just be addressed now.

–Sara Tenenbaum