Daytime dramas are in an unusual position. Soaps typically film episodes about a month in advance of their airdates. Scripts are also written well in advance in order to keep up with the rigors of having to put out a new show five times each week. Primetime shows may only put out 23 episodes each season. This schedule has allowed many soaps to stockpile enough scripts to last through the end of the year, but after that time it's unclear what will happen.
During the last strike by the WGA in 1988 the soaps plugged on even as the prolonged strike lasted 22 weeks and cost the industry $500 million. The various networks hired non-union writers to fill in for the striking WGA members. While new shows were produced, the inexperienced writers were hard-pressed to come up with the same quality of episodes with which viewers had become familiar. Plots dragged on for weeks without resolve and many shows were left in a state of total disrepair.
Obviously, this is not what daytime needs right now. Ratings for many soaps are at or near all-time lows and viewers seem to be tuning out in record numbers. How networks would handle their weekday programming without original episodes of the soaps this time around remains to be seen.
"Passions will be relatively unaffected by the writers strike. We already have scripts through February and weve already shot our scenes through the New Year," a Passions spokesperson explained.
A spokesperson for Days of our Lives, NBC's only soap, also hints that things are very much the status quo for the moment.
"At this point, we have scripts that will take us into the new year, so we don't expect any immediate interruption with Days of our Lives," a spokesperson tells soapcentral.com.
NBC has just one hour of scripted drama during its daytime line up. Its network rivals have substantially more invested in the soaps. ABC has three hours of scripted drama and CBS has three-and-half hours of scripted drama each weekday.
"ABC's daytime dramas are written well into the new year, and we will continue to produce original programming with no repeats and without interruption," a network spokesperson said in a statement.
Calls for comment from CBS executives were not returned.
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"If you were looking for something clever or witty or funny here, you've come to the wrong place."
i dont know, my friend said the last time the guild went on strike it was like 22 weeks (or something like that, might have been 28). Thats a long time
She's a jealous girl but still sexy as ever!
