While the WGA is declaring victory in the recent writers' strike, I live in Hollywood and have watched this debacle up close. I fail to see a happy ending.

The producers, studios, and networks face a changing world. The New Media dam walls have caved in, and executive are hustling to channel water into Internet webisodes, Ipod downloads, cell phone content, even the lucrative DVD industry. To do that they need money. Money they decided to take from the old model writers.

Honestly, I don't blame them. The kids in my house are on their computers and cell phones 24/7. They have TV on for background noise, but they aren't nearly as invested in the set. Truly, I never see them watching the major networks or such shows as the traditional sitcom. Youth dictates content. And youth gravitates toward extreme sports, reality shows, and new form shows like Flight of the Conchords, Entourage, or The Office.

So while I rue the result of the writers' strike, I get it.

For those of you who don't have writer friends or live outside of the content-producing corridors of LA and New York, perhaps you don't know what I'm talking about, perhaps you haven't heard of a little Draconian clause written into all writer contracts: force majeure.

Notice how quickly the directors' contract was settled. Producers, networks, and studios know they can't go forward without directors. Even the ubiquitous game shows and reality shows need directors. But writers?

The reason why the suits wouldn't negotiate with the writers was that they needed the strike to last long enough for them to enact force majeure, or a severance of contract due to extreme, unseen forces. A good ol' fashioned spring cleanin'.

Enacting force majeure allowed them to clean out the closets of the old model contracts they had with mature, seasoned writers. Rather than work with these folks on the New Media models, they swept them into a dustban and threw them in the dumpster out back.

Dozens of contracts were cancelled and old deal writers "retired."

While I embrace change (heck, I voted for Obama in the California primary), I also respect the years of work writers have spent perfecting their craft. This corporate downsizing -- and make no mistake, that's exactly what it was -- disrespects writing and writers alike.

I was talking to a friend of mine who's a three-time Emmy winning comedy writer. He reminded me that the networks and studios are now owned by billion dollar multi-national corporations. Entertainment is maybe 1-2% of their bottom line. They don't have any personal relationship with the writers like studio or network heads did in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Cutting all contracts in the six to seven figure range sounds really good to them.

"Hey, get the kid to do it. Pay him peanuts."

We all know someone who has been downsized no matter the industry. This fact of late twentieth and early twenty-first century corporate life denigrates the older and wiser among us for youth on the cheap. As long as suits continue to make this decision, those same suits better not complain about quality.

"Why are TV shows and movies so bad?" I often hear people ask.

"Because nobody cultivates and cares for the writing pool," I always answer.

March 2008