Study: Strike Didn't Stop TV Usage

Hollywood Reporter:

During the WGA strike, TV fans barely left the couch.

According to a new study, strike-era viewers managed to increase the amount of time spent watching DVDs, playing video games and surfing the Internet while continuing to watch as much television programming as before.

The findings are from a just-released Nielsen research study assessing the impact of the strike.

The report concluded that the industrywide work stoppage lowered the average Live+7 primetime total viewer ratings on the four major broadcast networks by 6.1% from the beginning of the walkoff in November to its conclusion in mid-February.

Read the whole story: Hollywood Reporter

Comments

[Jameslyons]

Most of the crap on tv during the strike was written by the WGA, so...

[coloradocowboy]

Give me a break!! Polls and surveys are notorious for being self serving. With three adults in the house, we watched more movies and even read a book or two. Why would we watch reruns (see get a life). Reality shows are contrived and election coverage is for lemmings.

[Darwinman]

Gasp! You mean people didn’t care about the writers union, who could have known, oh wait maybe if the writers read polls they would have discovered that in November only 20% of Americans where concerned over the strike. Two fifth of American didn’t care at all. (1) 49% said they were more likely to watch reruns, 40% said they planned to watch reality series and other programming not disrupted by the strike, and 26% were more likely to buy or rent DVDs of television series from past seasons. (2) Yes most Americans sided with the writers when polled if they refuse to turn off their televisions their not doing much help, meanwhile the writers strike cost about 2.1 billion dollars (3) and what did they get nothing……if the most union friendly industry can not even have an effective union then the days of unions are number



(1) http://bschool.pepperdine.edu/research/writersstrike/findings/writerstrike.pdf
(2) http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2007-12-18-strike-poll_N.htm
(3) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aKdwR9oC54WM