The Likely Effect of the Hollywood Strikes

[PeterRS]

Not having new movies around doesn't worry me much. There are so many good ones I have not seen it gives me time to catch up.

I worry much more about television, though. The last time the screenwriters were on strike there was one result we are living with today with increasing regularity - the rise of reality TV. Not that it did not exist beforehand. It just took off once the strike was underway and most of the new programmes were a poor imitation production-wise compared to their predecessors. TV suppliers need programmes, and if there are none with scripts, what better than to pack schedules with those based around programmes which make up their own dialogue. So we'd better stand by for lots more 'fascinating' new programmes on the lines of The Bachelor indonesia, The Bad Skin Clinic, some of the seeming idiots chosen for 90 Day Fiancee, Say Yes to the Dress, Metal Shop Masters, Cake Wars, the dreadful production values of Cruise Ship Murders and so on. 

Of course there have been some great reality TV shows depending on your likes and dislikes including Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Masterchef and American Ninja Warrior. Not that True Visions covers itself in glory. Its content has gone way downhill in the last decade. This started when it got rid of HBO on cost grounds. HBO used to have some of the best drama series but True replaced it with movie channels showing so many repeats, so many older and really old movies and movies in languages other than English for which it can not bother to add English subtitles. The ridiculous height of this policy came with the showing of the winner of the Oscar Best Picture, Life is Beautiful. When shown in Thai cinemas had it Thai and English subtitles. On True it had both Thai subtitles and Thai dubbing - but no English sub-titles! Across its channels it shows more and more programmes in languages other than Thai or English and with no English sub-titles. We have had to endure what seem to be quite interesting programmes in Slovakian in addition to Spanish, German, two 12-episode series of what seems a great Dutch thrilled The Oldenheim Twelve - but it's only in Dutch, Finnish, Italian, French and a rather interesting series in Korean about three cute young Korean stars travelling around South America. Complain to True Visions? The response is always the same. They show what the programme suppliers provide as they are supplied. And that of course is not merely a senseless reply (did they never hear about supplying what the customer requests?), it is simply not 'true' because almost all programmes are also dubbed into Thai. That is perfectly understandable - but do overseas programme suppliers do the dubbing? Of course they don't. That's nonsense! The programmes are suppied in advance and the dubbing done here.

The much more recent dropping of Star Sports in favour of the cheaper Gulf-based BeIn has resulted in some programmes being continued - although it did try to drop last year's Australian Open Tennis by saying it had failed to get the rights (i.e. for the first time ever it was not prepared to pay for them) before thousands of mostly Thai subscribers phoned to complain and it was reinstated the very next day. But who in Thailand regularly watches Korean baseball which fills one of the channels? (Doesn't True Visions realise that Japanese baseball players are much more cute 😵)? 

[reader]

6 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Doesn't True Visions realise that Japanese baseball players are much more cute 😵)? 

+1

[Pete1111]

Economically, if the strikes don't settle soon, that's going to hurt.  Barry Diller talked about it on Face the Nation, Sunday.

I'm not concerned about lack of new content.  I will ramp up my reading.