Fans Reaching Out to Touch the AMPTP Where It Hurts

FireDogLake has launched a web site that makes it click-through-easy for a fan to email the studios behind their favorite shows.

Other sites joining FireDogLake in the campaign are Daily Kos (4,050,000 hits/week), Raw Story (2,833,500), Crooks and Liars (1,850,000), AlterNet (1,500,000), and Democratic Underground (1,500,000). Carried on all those sites, almost 12,000,000 visitors/week will have the opportunity to click and send a complaint to the studio of their favorite show.

A fan group called "Television Unplugged" has recently launched an advertiser boycott and guerilla commerical project. What's nice about this idea is that it encourages fans not only to stop doing something (buying products) but to DO something (make a video). We at United Hollywood don't all agree on boycotting practices, but we do agree that no boycott is effective if it's done silently. If you're not going to buy products, make some noise about it!

A group on LiveJournal called Consumers Support the WGA has been emailing companies every day of the strike to send the message that viewers and advertisers alike have a stake in seeing a fair settlement. Their goal is to tell advertisers "loud and clear they need to put pressure on the people they pay to sell their things - people refusing to pay others a fair wage. Or we as consumers may decide not to pay them by not buying their goods."

TV fans are angry about their favorite shows going into reruns or going off the air. Reading the fan sites, it's great to see how connected people are to their shows. They appreciate the importance of writers, and to show their displeasure, they have been emailing the networks and studios who produce their shows. They've heard that the AMPTP is prolonging the strike to hurt the writers and the whole entertainment community, and they aren't having it.

There have been rumors that major advertisers, hearing the concerns of viewers and livid over the conduct of the networks, have threatened to take all their commercials off the air if the strike isn't settled before Christmas. That's a serious threat, with serious consequences.