TORONTO - The most stunning TV moment of 2007 was arguably the painfully ambivalent ending of the bloody mob drama "The Sopranos," yet it was the prospect of traditional television viewing habits getting permanently whacked that was causing nightmares for those across the industry.
Many are nervous that as the Hollywood screenwriters strike drags on and the airwaves become inundated with reruns and tiresome reality shows, TV fans will leave forever and find their entertainment elsewhere - on the Internet, via DVDs, playing state-of-the-art video games on slick gaming consoles or fiddling with their iPods, cellphones and BlackBerrys.
"You've got a real possibility of people going to the Internet or the PlayStation. There are so many other options nowadays for people to get their entertainment," television historian Wesley Hughes, author of "The Soap Opera Encyclopedia," has said.
Some liken the situation to the viewer exodus that occurred during the O.J. Simpson trial in the mid-1990s, when daytime serials lost eight million viewers as the spotlight shone on the former football great. Those viewers never returned and soap operas never fully recovered.
Canadian observers agree that the longer the strike continues into 2008, the higher the likelihood that viewers will begin not only exploring other ways to amuse themselves, but will also start seeking out shows that were created solely for the web.
That's a scary prospect for the big American networks and advertisers since no one has quite figured out yet how to make big money off the Net. It's also one of the biggest issues at play in the dispute between writers and producers - writers want a piece of those Internet revenues.
"Television is being eroded very quickly, and the strike is simply highlighting that," says Gavin McGarry, a Toronto-based digital media consultant. "Content is always going to be king - people will always go where there's great content. The distribution platform is irrelevant."
Jill Golick, a Canadian screenwriter who has penned scripts for shows like CTV's "Instant Star," agrees that people are beginning to go elsewhere for their entertainment - but insists that television is far from dead. In fact, she says, the medium is in its artistic heyday.
"We are going to see a long, slow migration to seeing your entertainment over the Internet and through other sources. As the new product in the U.S. starts to peter out, people are going to start looking towards the Internet and they will investigate what's there, although I don't think the Internet product is ready for a mass audience," she says.
While there are some great online shows like "quarterlife," produced by the creators of "thirtysomething" and "My So-Called Life" and recently sold to NBC, there's also a lot of online dreck sponsored by companies like Tide and Tampax.
"The viewer will check some of the stuff out and some of it will dishearten them. We're in a situation like we were in the very early days of television where we don't quite know how to use this medium yet, nor is there enough talent in it yet," Golick says.
"Whereas TV is in this golden era where there is incredible talent producing incredible TV shows. What's happening on TV right now is too strong for people to walk away from permanently. Some people will leave, but I don't think the Internet is ready for them in terms of content."
So far, in the United States, the numbers appear to bear her out.
The media research firm Magna Global said in a recent report that the effect on TV viewing habits as a result of the strike so far has been imperceptible. The company's Steve Sternberg added that the notion that viewing habits will change drastically in the event of a prolonged strike is nonsense, in large part because reality shows - many of which draw huge ratings - aren't impacted by the dispute.
"Video streaming is currently a minor occurrence, and is primarily driven by new television content. The impact on TV viewing, even during a lengthy strike, will be negligible," he told the Hollywood Reporter.
But McGarry says shows like "quarterlife" could represent just the beginning of a new era of entertainment that will lure viewers away from their television sets - and adds that Canada is perfectly positioned to be at the forefront of that emerging trend.
"The problem with the Internet is that we haven't had a lot of our auteurs making content for the web," McGarry says. "We've been playing around with it for 10 years but we haven't had people with serious money to throw at it until the last 12 months or so."
Canadians, already the world's heaviest Internet users and highly sophisticated online connoisseurs, are beautifully positioned to capitalize on the changing tide, he says.
McGarry points to the success of the Canadian children's website Club Penguin (www.clubpenguin.com). The site was launched two years ago by a trio of dads from Kelowna, B.C. - Lane Merrifield, Dave Krysko and Lance Priebe - and sold this summer to Disney for a whopping $350 million. Club Penguin will become a part of Disney's expanding collection of virtual worlds.
"Canada is really leading the way - we are creating so many great properties that are being sold to the United States," McGarry says. "We're in a unique space right now. We can lead the world. If we really take the bull by the horns and start really marketing and making great content for the web, which we're already doing, and getting it to U.S. websites, we could really make some money."
Others say big-money advertisers - not producers and certainly not writers - will truly determine whether television as we know it lives or dies in the years to come.
"Madison Avenue is the star, and Madison Avenue is God in all this," says Andy Nulman, president of Airborne Entertainment, a Montreal-based company that produces content for mobile devices. "The advertising industry is the one that is going to be determining how and where we watch our TV, because it will all depend on where they can make the most money."
Nonetheless, Nulman says, TV is likely safe for now.
"Traditional TV will always find a niche. It's a mass medium and it will find shows to fit it, shows like 'American Idol' and 'The Super Bowl' and other big events. But the more quirky the population becomes and the more access they have to other media, the more opportunity there are for niches to be formed."
There's one rule of thumb, Nulman points out: the smaller the screen, the shorter the attention span. No one, he says, is going to want to watch a feature-length film on their iPod.
Golick agrees, and says she ran into that very problem while taking in "quarterlife."
"With 'quarterlife,' all they've done have is taken a TV show, made it shorter and thrown it on the Internet," she says. "But when I sit down at the computer or with a laptop, my fingers go to my keyboard, my hand is on my mouse - after a few minutes, I'm twitching and wanting to check my e-mail or go to another site."
Instead, Golick says, TV fans should take this opportunity to check out the wealth of quality shows that they missed during their initial runs either through on-demand channels or by buying DVDs of those programs.
"If I were to give advice to anyone during the strike, I'd say go out and look at anything you haven't seen in terms of what's been happening on HBO and Showcase and Lifetime, go look at what's going on with British series, and I would say check out the Canadian shows," she says. "The impact of the strike in the coming year, I think, is that we're going to see a lot of DVD-renting."
