The writers' strike: what does it mean for gay TV viewers?

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) contract expired last night, and talks between the studios and the writers have broken off — with no talks rescheduled. Even more ominous, the WGA has asked members to show up at the LA Convention Center tonight at 10:00pm for an "announcement."

It looks almost certain that there will be a writers' strike. The sticking issues? First, the writers want a bigger cut of the increasingly lucrative DVD market. The current formula, set in 1985 to deal with videocassette sales, gives writers about four cents for every DVD sold. The WGA wants a new formula that would essentially double that. Second and possibly more important, the WGA wants a share in the profits for internet broadcasts. The studios say they want to table that discussion until the internet market is "more mature."

Neither side appears willing to give ground, which is making a walkout seem inevitable. And if a similar strike in 1988 is any example, this thing could drag on for months.

So, what would a strike mean to television viewers (and gay television viewers in particular)?

First to be affected would be talk shows. As early as next week there would be no more David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, or Jay Leno.

Regis & Kelly and the ladies of The View might still go "live," but if they do they'll be ad libbing all their own material. (Oh the horror!)

Also immediately impacted: Saturday Night Live. Amy Poehler says the show has no backlog of scripts so, “Boom — our show just shuts down.”

Worse in my mind, we'd also immediately lose The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. The Bush administration might be cheering this turn of events, but the rest of us will need to get our daily fix of Stewart and Colbert via Comedy Central's online video archive.

But that's just the beginning.

Next to go would be daytime serials. Imagine a world without Luke and Noah? Soap operas have roughly a month of scripts in the can so expect As the World Turns to go dark in early December. Replacing it? Probably a mixture of news and sports programming. And here I thought having Luke in a wheelchair was bad.

As for scripted nighttime programming — if a strike is called tomorrow most shows have four or five scripts in the hopper. Expect your favorite series such as Brothers & Sisters, Ugly Betty, et. al. to run out of new shows by early January.

So, after January what would that leave for discerning gay television viewers? Not much. Reality programming will survive, so there's always American Idol, Survivor, Project Runway, Amazing Race and the like to keep you occupied. But what if there aren't many gay characters to root for? American Idol has never been very gay-inclusive, and a show that has been gay inclusive in the past, Amazing Race, returns this season with no gay male contestants to speak of. And over on Survivor, gay contestant Todd's days may be numbered now that his clever plan to send the hidden immunity idol back to the other camp backfired.

If a writers' strike does happen, viewers looking for representations of gay men on television might be best served by Bravo's Project Runway which this season will boast a record number of gay designer contestants.

Still, even with that one bright spot, it's a pretty bleak outlook. And even bleaker for people like me, who write about gay-themed television.

Keep your fingers crossed that, by some miracle, a strike isn't called.