• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, November 14, 2007

The Hollywood writers’ strike loomed large during the early morning sessions of OMMA Video in Los Angeles. Bravo’s Jason Klarman touched on it, following his opening keynote. Noting that Bravo’s TVbigshot.com fantasy TV league is now gearing up for a “November sweeps” competition, Klarman said, I don’t know how that will be affected by the writer’s strike.”

Brian Monahan, director of IPG’s Emerging Media Labs, addressed it more directly, and more quickly, when he set up the opening panel discussion on the roll of pre-roll.

“We almost didn’t have this panel,” Monahan quipped, adding that the panelists were “holding out” for more and that “OMMA couldn’t figure out how to size that market.” In case you haven’t been following the big news in Hollywood, he was talking about the strike and the contentious issues surrounding talent and residual payments for new digital video platforms.

“I guess that joke doesn’t work in Hollywood,” Monahan concluded.