"This WGA strike sucks, to be sure. If it goes on for more than three months (which is looking increasingly likely), pilot season won't happen, no new shows will be created, no new seasons will come back, and we'll be stuck with the dregs of reality TV for a full year. Yep, that means no last season of Battlestar Galactica, no new season of Lost, and no new episodes of The Office. It's no small thing, and not just because you'll be inconvenienced by marathons of Overweight Celebrity Chili Cook-Off Island or whatever the networks will throw up when they run out of new programming.

TV is not disappearing anytime soon, but clearly, it's going to be replaced by either the internet or some TV/internet hybrid. Like the music industry, the TV industry realizes that their tried-and-true business model is about to be useless, and it's lashing out in panic. Unlike the music industry, who stupidly attacked its fans, the TV industry is attacking its own creative source: writers. But the WGA wouldn't be striking if this wasn't important. We talked to both sides to get at the root of the trouble."

Labels: Industrial Relations, strike

This is seriously unbelievable. First, The Australian Howard Government sets up The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations which is specifically designed to monitor possible breaches of the Workplace Relations Act. Then, this very government department tramples over its own guidelines by issuing notices [illegal, as it turns out] to its employees denying them leave to attend a union organised rally. This is such a statement on the state of the current Australian Government, not to mention the mainstream Aussie media. Why isn't this the leading story across all networks??

Labels: Industrial Relations, John Howard