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The first Hollywood strike in 15 years started on Tuesday as unionized TV and film writers picketed outside major studios for better pay in response to the economic pressures of the streaming era, a work stoppage that is forcing the majority of late-night programs to air repeats.
“No agreements, no content!” Outside the Manhattan building where NBCUniversal was promoting its Peacock streaming service to advertisers, sign-waving WGA members chanted.
After failing to reach a new contract with the trade association that represents Hollywood studios and production companies, approximately 11,500 film and television writers who are represented by the union put down their pens and laptops.
The union wants among other things a higher minimum wage, more writers per show, and shorter exclusive contracts, all of which it claims have been weakened by the content boom brought on by streaming.
“There’s too much work and not enough pay,” protester Sean Crespo, 46, a writer whose resume includes “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,” a former TBS program, said.
Depending on how long the strike lasts, the labor dispute could have a ripple effect on TV and film productions. At the same time, streaming services are coming under increasing pressure from Wall Street to demonstrate profitability.
Like with the 100-day writers’ strike in 2007, late-night television was the first to experience the effects.
The writers for the top late-night shows, who create jokes and monologues for the hosts, immediately turned off all of their lights. Reruns were planned for all of the following programs: NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” Comedy Central’s “Daily Show,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” CBS’s “The Late Show,” and NBC’s “Late Night.”
NBC declined to comment on the future of “Saturday Night Live.” A new episode of the sketch show will air on Saturday, and Pete Davidson will host.
“I’m not the only one who hopes both sides come to an agreement. On Monday’s “Late Show,” host Stephen Colbert said, “But I also believe that the writers’ demands are not unreasonable.
Colbert said, “Unions have done so much for this country. We have weekends because of unions, which also explains why TGI Fridays exists.
Scripted television shows and movies will take longer to feel the effects of the strike; however, those with completed scripts are allowed to keep shooting. Late-night hosts eventually resumed airing during the 2007 strike and improvised their way through shows.
Jay Leno, host of the “Tonight” show, enraged the WGA hierarchy when he started writing his own monologues.
One late-night program won’t be canceled. Greg Gutfeld’s “Gutfeld!” on Fox News will continue to air brand-new episodes, Fox announced on Tuesday.
Studios and production companies are represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which claimed to have presented an offer with “generous increases in compensation for writers as well as improvements in streaming residuals.”
In a statement, the trade association said that while it was willing to improve its proposal, it was unable to do so due to the size of other proposals that the guild was still requesting.
For months, a shutdown has been widely anticipated. Last month, 98% of the writers’ membership voted in favor of authorizing a strike.
The old formula for calculating how residuals are paid out needs to be revised, according to writers, who also complain that TV writer rooms have shrunk too much and their pay hasn’t kept up with inflation.
Writing jobs have increased as a result of the explosion in the number of series and movies produced each year thanks to streaming. But writers claim that despite working in more demanding circumstances, their pay has decreased. According to the WGA, “the companies’ behavior has created a gig economy inside a union workforce.”
The union is requesting greater upfront compensation for writers. That’s because the emergence of streaming has largely eliminated many of the payments from which writers have historically benefited on the back end, such as syndication and international licensing.
The guild is requesting a minimum number of scribes per writer room, according to the studios’ trade association, and the length of employment contracts, which are the main points of contention in a deal.
The writer’s union has stated that when writers are hired for series that have a tendency to be shorter-lived than the formerly typical 20-plus episode broadcast season, they need more flexibility.
The use of artificial intelligence, which writers fear could allow producers to complete a WGA writer’s work more quickly, is another area where they are pushing for more regulation.
The writer-director Justine Bateman said, “Understand that our fight is the same fight that is coming to your professional sector next: it’s the devaluing of human effort, skill, and talent in favor of automation and profits.”
Spending is being cut by many studios and production companies. The Walt Disney Company is laying off 7,000 employees. In order to reduce its debt, Warner Bros. Discovery is cutting expenses. The growth of consumer spending has been slowed by Netflix.
Films will take longer to be affected, and fall TV schedules may be affected if a strike lasts all summer. Meanwhile, the quality can suffer significantly if writers are not available for revisions.
Daniel Craig regrettably described the script for the 2007–2008 James Bond movie “Quantum of Solace” as having “the bare bones of a script.” The movie was one of many hastily produced during that time.
Craig later recalled, “I was trying to rewrite scenes, and I’m not a writer.”
Since a walkout was long anticipated, writers scrambled to submit their scripts, and studios tried to set up their pipelines so that they could continue to produce content for at least the foreseeable future.
However, the harm to regional economies can be severe. The last strike is thought to have cost Los Angeles’ economy $2.1 billion in lost output.
The chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav, stated last month that “from a business perspective, we’re assuming the worst.” “We’ve prepared ourselves. A lot of content has been produced for us.
International series may also help to fill the gap. Ted Sarandos, co-chief executive of Netflix, stated on the company’s earnings call in April that “We have a large base of upcoming shows and films from around the world.”
On Tuesday and throughout the rest of the week, more protests were scheduled throughout Los Angeles.
The WGA strike might just be the start of things. The unions representing actors, SAG-AFTRA and the Directors Guild of America, both have contracts that expire in June.
Those negotiations will involve some of the same problems related to the streaming business model. On May 10, the DGA and AMPTP will start talking.
