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Now that the writers' strike has been settled, we can ask what will the long-term effects be? The Writers' Guild itself has declared victory, and so has its opponent, the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (the AMPTP, which is dominated by the heads of the eight largest studios). In fact according to a recent Variety article, CBS head Les Moonves claims that the strike actually saved the studios money. To appreciate the long-term effects of the strike, it's important to look at aftermath from the viewpoint of the writers and other workers, the studios, and the viewers, for both television and film.

The impact of the strike on upcoming films won't be seen for some time, since the studios already had a number of films in the works, and since smaller studios weren't affected by the strike. The major studios didn't buy any scripts during this period, and they used a clause known as force majeure to cancel contracts for films in progress, lay off workers and restructure management. According to the AMPTP's figures, film and television crews lost over $490,000,000 from the work stoppage. Movie fans and writers can expect the cost-cutting measures to continue. In the next few years, the studios will likely produce fewer loss-leaders, pay less for scripts, and keep churning out safe bets like sequels and adaptations of best-sellers, television shows, and video games. The smaller independent studios will pick up the slack, taking a chance on riskier, edgier stories.

The main impact will be on television writers, viewers, and studios. In fact, the main sticking point in negotiations was over television residuals (money above and beyond the writer's initial salary, paid out whenever a movie or show is re-run or presented in a new medium, like DVD's). At the heart of the television residual disagreement was the percent paid writers for material redistributed in new media (primarily over the Internet). The studios claimed they needed to keep costs low in order to try out new methods of gaining revenue. Writers pointed out that the amounts offered were only 1/20 of the traditional residuals for re-runs (the primary source of income for many writers who aren't permanently salaried), and since episodes distributed online may one day replace broadcast re-runs, television would suffer a crippling pay cut. The final agreement sticks to the low new media payout for two years, then switches to a revenue-sharing percentage, which means that writers will benefit

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