If you’ve ever felt that you don’t have enough time to watch television you’re most certainly not alone. It feels like there’s at least 30-50 shows that you can mention off the top of your head that you need to follow. Turns out there’s around 10 times that. That’s right folks, last year the television industry produced 455 scripted shows last year. Do you realize how much television that is? Here, let me break it down for you. Let’s say that each show is 30 minutes and runs once a week and air a total of 15 times. P.S. that’s an extremely low estimate considering there are numerous 1 hour shows not to mention plenty that run every day, and even more than run over 15 episodes. But let’s be nice about this:
204,750. That’s how many minutes of television you’d have to watch in a year to cover all of this. Know what that equates to? 142 days. It would take you more than half a year of watching television for 24 hours a day to watch what’s out there right now (and that’s just scripted shows). Realistically you’re probably looking at closer to anywhere from 220-350 DAYS of television.
Why do I bring this up? Because of the impending writer strike. Can you imagine the chaos would occurs if the writers and producers can’t come up with a compromise? 455 shows? I’m still in disbelief.
“The digital revolution is catching up with TV, but the economic models haven’t,” said Darrell Miller, a managing partner and head of the entertainment practice at law firm Fox Rothschild LLP. “They are fighting because the new media groups are reluctant to transition faster than they have to.”
“In a time of unprecedented demand, TV writers are, illogically, earning less,” the Writer’s guild said. The organization declined to comment beyond the materials on its website.
There’s still 3 weeks to go before the May 2nd deadline. We’ll keep you posted.
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