I don't think it was the writers strike so much as salaries spiraling out of control with smash hits like Friends, Frasier, and Will & Grace, coupled with the success of Millionaire and Survivor -- which all happened together in 2000-2001.
All of that also precipitated a bunch of Hollywood actors jumping to TV because they realized they could make more money on TV and subsequent DVD-season sales than they could through films, leading us where we are today: Virtually all of the good shows are on cable or subscriber channels while the OTA networks either have scripted shows assembled on a shoestring budget with terrible casts that couldn't act their way out of a paper sack or "reality" series and game shows.
On the rare occasion that a good show with a good cast lands on network TV, its season will be very short with a lot of reruns (costs less for the network). After all, why order 26 episodes of a show if you can run 20 + 6 reruns and still draw the same number of viewers? Shows like Law & Order and CSI are a great example of this. Reruns of CSI and SVU have been outdrawing new programming on other networks for years.
