Please no. Not again.

The only way I can see the WGA using public opinion to influence the ratings though is to actually get people to switch off all programming. Which they might have been doing, but I've missed it if they have. I don't think that's gonna happen, though.

I don't understand.

Maybe I wasn't clear. Public opinion is important to the corporations. I mean they have to appear to be really super duper disgusting to the the public to reach the care threshhold.

But they don't. It's an incredibly easy spin to blame greedy writers. It's more complex to explain that it's ridciulousness on behalf of the corp.

I agree. I also think the Tonight Show staff was fired, not because NBC is in a panic, but to influence public opinion, i.e. "Look what the greedy writers have made us do!"

I agree. I also think the Tonight Show staff was fired, not because NBC is in a panic, but to influence public opinion, i.e. "Look what the greedy writers have made us do!"

But frankly, this hasn't happened. I don't sense people buying the "greedy writers" meme anywhere in any great numbers, and the various polls all seem to bear me out on this.

I do think public opinion, public support, matters hugely. I don't know that there's been a successful strike in practically ever where it didn't matter.

I may have already asked this, but is there an organized letter-writing campaign under way? To specific studio heads or network heads or big advertisers? I wrote a shitload of letters during the actors' strike and I was shocked at how many at least semi-personal responses I got, especially from advertisers, full of "The issues are of course very complex" weasel-words but with an undertone of real worry that they were getting flak not just from the strikers but from fans, that their public images were being tarnished by their unwillingness to back down.

I know there's a postcard drive being run by someone (which I stupidly failed to bookmark), but IME actual letters get a better response. I'd be happy to start cranking them out again if I knew where they should go.

Heh. We should have Buffistas.org letterhead for our many angry letters. But, we'd have to vote.

Victor, anecdotally I'm looking at the TVGuide letters and "trolls" at the UH site and Nikki Finke's blog. I don't think all of the naysayers are "trolls." I think some are honest dissent.

I've spoken to more than a few folks, and have overheard quite a few conversations in airports that pretty much reduce the issue to the following, "I went to watch my TV and the show I want to watch isn't airing a new episode because of the god damned writers."