Thirtysomething creator eyes strike exemption

Marshall Herskovitz, the creator of hit US series thirtysomething and My So Called Life, believes that his latest series Quarterlife may be allowed to circumvent the current writers’ strike as it is an independent production.

Quarterlife (see Screen Watch section) has been produced exclusively for the Internet and funded entirely by Herskovitz, his partner Ed Zwick and advertisers. 

The first season is still shooting, but Hersovitz has finished writing. "The strike won’t affect us now, but it could conceivably affect us if it carries on for a while. I am not making this for one of the big [media] companies so we could conceivably get a [pass] from the writer’s guild."

One of the main problems in the battle between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers is revenues created by online delivery of professional written content. However, it is unclear whether this will affect series that are independently owned, those which are not controlled by Disney, NBC Universal, News Corp, Sony, Time Warner or Viacom/Paramount.