TV Series "24" Cancelled Due To Writers Strike. "Lost" Still On Air

Fox on Wednesday became the first broadcast network to announce a strike-affected mid-season schedule minus its signature drama "24" according to a Hollywood Reporter article.

Faced with the possibility of a partial Season 7 of "24," Fox has opted not to air the real-time drama at all this season. "It's not a decision we wanted to make, but it's one based on how we feel the viewers expect us to schedule the show," said Preston Beckman, Fox's scheduling chief.

The decision to act quickly so early in the strike also was prompted by the large amounts of marketing money associated with the premieres of new series and the annual launch of "24." The network began airing promos for the upcoming season of "24" during the World Series and on a big screen in Times Square.

For now, ABC is still sticking to its plan to air heavily serialized "Lost" in midseason, running the eight produced episodes, 10 short of the 18-episode order.

Fox's high-profile new drama "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," originally slated to run in tandem with "24," will now premiere Sunday, Jan. 13, and will air in "24's" Monday 9 p.m. time slot, following "Prison Break" and new reality series "When Women Ruled the World."

Fueled by "American Idol," which will launch with a two-night, four-hour premiere Jan. 15-16, and helped buy the fact it only programs 15 hours a week, Fox has been considered the best equipped to handle a long writers strike.

Other developments related to the writer strike:

• NBC's "The Office" officially shut down production Wednesday after its star Steve Carell and several other cast members refused to cross the picket line Monday and Tuesday, effectively bringing filming of the hit comedy to a halt. Several "Office" writers, including showrunner Greg Daniels, posted a video shot on the picket line on YouTube.

• With the exception of "Scrubs," which is slated to film for awhile, all comedy series still in production are slated to wrap shooting their available scripts by early next week, followed by dramas, which will go on hiatus by the end of the month, laying off thousands of crew members.

(Image care of Fox.com)

Hollywood Writers' Strike Halts Desperate Housewives, The Daily Show & Other Shows

Yahoo News reports that several shows will be on halt for the duration of the writers' strike composed of members of the Writers Guild of America. This strike was not expected to have an immediate impact on production of movies or most prime-time TV programs. Most studios have stockpiled dozens of movie scripts, and many TV shows have scripts or completed shows in hand to last until early next year.

But apparently several sitcoms and scripted shows suffer from the strike because they are typically written the same week they are filmed, with jokes being sharpened by writers even on the day of production.

Reality shows on the other hand could flourish because they don't use union writers, despite an aggressive attempt by the writers guild to organize the staffers on the programs.

The strike began Monday after last-minute negotiations failed to produce a deal on how much writers are paid when shows are offered on the Internet. No new negotiations have been scheduled so far. Nick Counter, chief negotiator for the producers union, has said he expected a long standoff. Writers said the next move was up to the studios.

Really this has been a decade long battle about wages and shares. Everybody knows how important writers are and how pivotal their roles are to television shows around the world, but still they are under-paid - kind of like teachers.