I read an informative article in Entertainment Weekly about this situation. There is a lot of everything being sold on the internet, including movies, citcoms, shows, etc. You can purchase these things at web sites like itunes. The writers, who are key people in the evolution of entertainment, get a tiny, tiny percentage of the profit made on these things that they write.
As a result they have went on strike to try to get the earnings they feel they deserve for their work. So as a result, many TV shows are going to soon run out of new episodes, many have already started showing re-runs. The article even gave the number of new episodes the popular shows had left.
They also say that we will not see a lull in big screen movies until next year or more because there are quite a few movies that are being finished or are finished that will come out within the next few months, but after those, not much will be out there due to the strike.
This is what I gathered.