• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 14, 2008

Media buyers, take note: An actors' strike will make the writers' strike look like a walk in Central Park... on a sunny day... with someone handing you daiquiris along the way.

June 30 will come a few weeks after the broadcast part of the upfront is done. That's when the actors will most probably elect to strike. And advertisers will be looking at a second strike in less than a year, which, in theory, could flow into the start of the fall season.

Again, TV networks will be looking a scarcity of fresh programming. Again, TV networks will use this as leverage to force in even more reality shows. Again, media buyers will be scratching their heads about whether to shift media dollars around.

No doubt some networks are trying to get ready for this second wave of TV disruption with already planned alternative original programming efforts. But along with that will come more uncertainty -- a word national TV advertisers don't like much.

What effect will this have on media buying? About the same as what happened with the writers' strike -- initially nothing, then in the weeks that follow, lower ratings, perhaps at double digital percent decreases.

If the Screen Actors Guild decides to strike on June 30, it leaves the networks the summer to come up with plans, a time that is typically spent marketing new programs.  All this new marketing will give executives even more headaches -- considering the new adjustments they may have to make.  

This time no one will be spared -- not cable networks, not syndication. Actors on big-time cable shows will be affected, and lower overall ratings will do to syndication shows what they have done to syndication shows this past February.  

Media buyers estimate that at best 20% of the broadcast networks' fall schedules contain new programs. But now they'll need to consider a new season with fewer new shows -- and one that starts in reruns, with a multitude of short-series reality shows.

Weary media planners who might already be planning on hefty price increases come this upfront - stemming from the current state of the scatter market -- will now have one sure thing working in their media plans: that TV networks will look more like Internet destinations, running "content" on their schedules.

Don't call any of that stuff well-acted television shows .