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Here's one New Year's resolution that will be easy to keep: Watch more "American Idol," "Survivor" and "Deal or No Deal" in 2008.
The reason? The creators of reality and game shows aren't among the showbiz types sidelined by the entertainment-writers strike. They don't belong to the union that called the strike in early November.
As most prime-time sitcoms and dramas fall into reruns, these staples of lowbrow TV will be some of the only new programming around.
- MSN TV: The ABCs of the writers strike
"With the start of the new year, we will see a flood of reality programming from the networks," predicts Chris Scheuer, a media-sector analyst at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. Viewers will also see shows that got rejected earlier in the season, he says. But don't get your hopes up: There are reasons they didn't make the first cut.
Reality TV and game shows won't be the only winners in the writers strike. The strike favors cable TV operators such as Viacom (VIA, news, msgs) and Discovery Holding (DISCA, news, msgs). They air a higher mix of reality shows and have more hours of fresh programming ready for broadcast. They also have excess unsold advertising time; perversely, the strike has put a premium on unsold airtime.
Fox, a division of News Corp. (NWS, news, msgs), could also come out a relative winner compared with the other broadcast networks. Fox has more of the kind of programming unaffected by the walkout.
The biggest losers look to be CBS Inc. (CBS, news, msgs), Walt Disney's (DIS, news, msgs) ABC and General Electric's (GE, news, msgs) NBC. With few fresh shows in the can, they'll run the most repeats. And they're already in a financial jam as they try to keep promises to advertisers about how many viewers they can deliver.
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Of these stocks, CBS will suffer the most because it gets the highest portion of its revenue from TV. Disney has movie and theme-park divisions, and it owns the ESPN cable sports channel, where ratings should remain strong. NBC's revenue represents a small portion of General Electric's bottom line, so the strike probably won't have a big impact on GE stock.
Here's a closer look at how the strike affects the stocks of the companies behind your favorite TV shows.
Why there's nothing new on
Ardent TV fans are in for a rough couple of months because the Writers Guild of America, which represents entertainment writers, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are far apart on several key points.Writers want a bigger share of DVD and rental revenue. They also want a sizable share of income generated via the Internet. And the guild wants to represent the creative writers responsible for reality shows and cartoons.
Producers are so opposed to these concessions that the walkout could last well into spring or even summer, Lehman Bros. (LEH, news, msgs) media-sector analyst Anthony DiClemente says.
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