I’ve been following the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike since an old high school friend is a member. She’s been writing for a popular police drama for a number of years now so I set my alert services to bring back tidbits on the strike and her writing group in particular.
This morning I got an alert from the Center for Media Research with a survey recap from the Online Testing Exchange with some interesting numbers as they relate to the way people will watch TV (or not) as the strike goes on.
Seems 44% of the people surveyed stated they’ll continue to watch their favorite show even if they’re repeats and 26% said they’d probably watch more reality TV since those types of shows aren’t likely to be affected by the strike. (I love you Simon!)
But the most interesting number IMO was this one:
16% said they’ll watch more original content on the Internet as a way to keep themselves entertained during the strike.
The OTX only surveyed 3100 people for this opinion poll but still…… 496 of them said they’ll go online for original content. The fact they KNOW to go online means they’re already aware it’s there and will just do more of it. Don’t let the statistic fool you, that little drop in the bucket represents a huge possibility if you think about the millions of people with Internet access.
If you’ve thought about creating a video now might be the time to get it going. With universal search the topic du jour and the writers strike possibly re-channeling people online, you stand a pretty good chance of being seen — and linked to.
