We don't have a whole lot of people living hand-to-mouth in the Writers Guild, we get paid really well, and a lot of the things we fought for, in my case, I can negotiate. I can negotiate higher DVD rates or anything I want, it's not going to be a minimum basic agreement. But I do think it was important to stand up to them. I do think that we got things in the deal that we wouldn't have gotten had we not stood up to them.

Everyone's opinion is of equal value, which is bizarre to me. It's so hard to get anybody cast because you'll be on the phone with 15 people, and if anybody says I don't know about that guy - move on. Wait a minute, why is that person's note valid? It's such a bizarre process that's sprung up around it.

You get notes from two studios and a network instead of a studio and a network. Although we early on forced them all to do their notes together. I make them all talk to each other first. Because we went through the pains of getting notes from ABC and at the time it was Touchstone, that were opposite - and then CBS notes that were opposite again. So it was, you guys are going to have to work it out as to what is the most important note.

Television viewership has been declining for a number of years. The internet has been blamed. Everything has been blamed. Except for what I think the problem is: that the networks own the shows, and they completely think that they make them. They don't any longer let the people who make shows just make them. The networks have notes about everything. They are intimately involved in every aspect of the process. And I think it's hurt the process.

It was always about the future of writers, and about the way writers are treated in the future, and I think that was really hurtful to a lot of people in my position who had 160 people who depended on them to get this over with. So there was a lot of pain in it, and in that sense it will never be worth it, but I do think it was important.

I think there's an element to this business that writers especially are overlooked in many ways and this made everybody kind of look at us differently. I do think that an interesting thing happened during it, which was being on these picket lines and looking at the huge amount of executives coming and going that you realize don't really add much to the equation.

If you don't like me, you don't like me. You can call me anytime; I'll have an opinion on just about anything. I will also tell you if I shouldn't have an opinion on something - I just make television shows.