How the Writers' Strike Affects American Idol
The Writers' Guild of America strike is slowly starting to take its toll on the entertainment industry as each company begins running out of fresh scripts. Networks are looking for ways to retain a sturdy audience without additional scripts coming in from their shows' writers, whether it be by reruns, the regular assortment of mid-season replacements, reality shows, resurrected shows, and even cable network shows. The presence of reality shows strengthens more and more as the strike continues because reality shows are produced relatively cheaply and, most importantly, without scripts.
One might think that American Idol would benefit from the strike because a show like AI is theoretically expandable into many more episodes. For instance, the number of the starting field could be increased, and each additional contestant or two would add an additional week of American Idol — and one week of American Idol is really two nights of programming. In fact, if the network were in dire need of programming, they could have two separate male groups and two separate female groups. This would either pad the competition out many weeks or give Fox enough programming to fill four nights of the week instead of two. Of course, the groups would eventually have to merge (à la Survivor).
Unfortunately for die hard American Idol fans, this will not be the case. Not only does Fox not expect to expand the American Idol season, but AI7 is even scheduled for a half hour less programming than last year (48.5 hours versus AI6's 49 hours of programming).
Fox seems to have more original programming stored up than any other network: American Dad, America's Most Wanted, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, Back to You, Bones, Canterbury's Law, Cops, Don't Forget the Lyrics, Family Guy, Hell's Kitchen, House, King of the Hill, Moment of Truth, New Amsterdam, Prison Break, Return of Jezebel James, The Simpsons, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Til Death, and Unhitched.
So while Fox doesn't seem to need to extend American Idol 7 to fill in spots at this time, there's still at least a tiny bit of hope for those crazed AI fans out there.
