Cynthia Littleton – författare

Season Finale is an inside chronicle of the entertainment industry following the unexpected rise and fall of the WB and UPN networks.In the mid-1990s, Hollywood studios Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures each launched their own broadcast television network, hoping to become the fifth player in an industry dominated by ABC, CBS, NBC, and, more recently, Fox. Against all odds, the WB and UPN altered primetime television’s landscape, only to merge as the CW in 2006—casualties of conflicting personalities, relentless competition, and a failure to anticipate the business’s future.Following the money, egos, and risks of network television, former WB executive Susanne Daniels and Variety television reporter Cynthia Littleton expose the difficulties of trying to launch two traditional broadcast networks just as cable and the Internet were ending their dominance. Through in-depth reportage and firsthand accounts, Daniels and Littleton re-create the creative and business climate that birthed the WB and UPN, illustrating how the race to find programming spawned their heated rivalry and created shows that became icons of youth culture. Offering insider stories about shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson’s Creek, 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls, Smallville, Felicity, Girlfriends, Everybody Hates Chris, and America’s Next Top Model, the authors present the creative environment that ushered these groundbreaking programs into living rooms across America.Despite success, the WB and UPN unraveled due to corporate miscalculations, management missteps, and industry upheaval that led to their decline—and rebirth as the CW. This is a cautionary and compelling entertainment saga about a precarious moment in television history, when the transformation of the broadcast networks signaled an inevitable shift for all pop culture.

TV on Strike examines the upheaval in the entertainment industry by telling the inside story of the first writers' strike—the hundred-day writers’ strike that thwarted Hollywood in late 2007 and early 2008. The television industry’s uneasy transition to the digital age was the driving force behind what seemed then to be the most significant labor dispute of the twenty-first century. Now, in 2024, we know it was only the first battle.The strike put a spotlight on how the advent of new media distribution platforms reshaped the traditional business models that governed the television industry for decades. The uncertainty that sent writers out into the streets of Los Angeles and New York with picket signs laid bare the depth of the divide between the media barons who rule the entertainment industry and the writers who are integral as the creators of movies and television shows.With both sides afraid of losing millions in future profits, a critical communication breakdown spurred a fierce battle with repercussions reverberated in the 2023 writers and actors strikes. The saga of the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike is told through the eyes of the key players on both sides of the negotiating table and of the foot soldiers who surprised even themselves with the strength of their resolve to fight for their rights in the face of an ambiguous future. In the years since the strike ended, the rise of digital distribution platforms has continued to change the business landscape in ways that few could have predicted when Hollywood guilds were first feverishly trying to hammer out a contract template for a new era.