TV Strike Hits Columbia, Raises GPAs

Just how bad was the Writers Guild of America strike, which started Nov. 5, 2007, and lasted until Feb. 12, 2008? Well, because Screen Actors Guild members were unwilling to cross picket lines, there was no 65th Annual Golden Globe Awards ceremony—the awards were given out without one. According to the Associated Press, the strike cost Los Angeles $2.5 billion. TV Guide reports that ratings for once-popular scripted shows like CSI and Grey’s Anatomy have been down by as much as 26 percent since networks began airing post-strike episodes (then again, even American Idol’s ratings have been slipping this year). Worst of all, it seems that NBC’s strike-born remake of American Gladiators was enough of a hit that they’ll be airing a new season of the trash-tastic show this summer.

Even though the strike meant that Columbia students’ favorites like Gossip Girl and 30 Rock were largely absent from the air after showing their last pre-strike episodes in January and before airing their first post-strike episodes in April, the strike didn’t end up having a very large effect on Columbia television watchers.

Frank Nestor, CC ’10, echoed Cohen’s sentiments. “I realized that even without TV and movies as distractions, I’ll still find ways to procrastinate doing work.”

If anything, students report, the strike seems to have meant a lot more to their family members than it did to Columbia students. “My mom called me every day to say how much she was spending on pay-per-view movies because there was nothing on TV,” Jamie Johns, CC ’10, said. “At one point, she told me, ‘I watched Stardust. That’s how bad it is.’”

Surprisingly enough, many Columbia students say that the strike may actually have been a positive thing. Even though the lack of scripted programming forced Shannon Donnelly, CC ’08, to “get sucked into America’s Next Top Model via endless MTV marathons,” she also acknowledged that the strike “secured the rights of hardworking television writers and helped drive the nail into Bionic Woman’s coffin, so some good definitely came out of it.”

Columbia students looking for a silver lining? Now that’s newsworthy.