I mean.. not indefinitely, but in a war of attrition, executives are much better positioned to weather the drought than writers. Apart from everything else, there is just so much content out there, re-running old stuff is a valid tactic until other steps are necessary.
I absolutely buy willingness to hold out. I have no way of telling the public sentiment on the issue though, which could be a factor.
For an idea of what things can be like for strikes in the entertainment industry, look at the 1942-1944 musicians' strike[1]. Yes that's a multi-year strike, not a series of strikes.
> in a war of attrition, executives are much better positioned to weather the drought than writers
Not necessarily. If the writers had pulled this in 2021, they'd have won. Everyone wanted to buy more content. That not only made the opportunity cost of not producing larger, it introduced the credible threat of writers picking off the studios one by one or even decamping to a new entrant.
> executives are much better positioned to weather the drought than writers.
Why? Due to the way Hollywood treats writers, they're already used to having periods of 6-10 months or so without any writing work.
> there is just so much content out there, re-running old stuff is a valid tactic until other steps are necessary.
But it doesn't raise the stock price. At best, it might keep it afloat for a while. Unlike the writers, the studio execs are expected to show growth on a regular basis.
And bear in mind that the studios have already been using "Your favorite shows won't have new episodes! Doesn't that make you want to force the writers to accept our utterly one-sided contract??" as a cudgel toward fans—so they think that "watching old content instead of demanding the new right away" is, at least to some extent, not in their best interests.
<< Why? Due to the way Hollywood treats writers, they're already used to having periods of 6-10 months or so without any writing work.
My apologies. I assumed it was clear from my post. Executives have more money to burn through. They also do not automatically lose money, when writer don't work ( streaming services bring in steady flow as long as you have a decent library ). Who knows? Maybe this will force streaming services to share the digital library in an effort to outmaneuver writers ( one giant library of oldies to draw from ). Seems unlikely, but it all depends on how hell bent executives really are.
Now compare that situation to that of writers. It does not look as promising.
<< Unlike the writers, the studio execs are expected to show growth on a regular basis.
Eh. Execs have to mollify investors and investors are not unlikely to support 'heavy negotiation tactics'. As such, I am not sure if they have to worry about 2023.
FWIW, I may very well be wrong. I am a sucker for a David vs Goliath story, but the deck is heavily stacked against writers.
Studios don't want to shoot shows now, but they had to due to pre-existing contracts. Now they don't have to due to the strike. They simply cite force majeure.
We're in this perfect storm of circumstances where the WGA strike is PROFITABLE for the studios, and not only they're not motivated to negotiate, they're motivated for this strike to go on for the rest of the year at least.
The studios are not bluffing. They're comfortable right now. Do you know who's bluffing: WGA's Adam Conover. He said "we're in it for the long haul and we'll support all our members who need to pay rent and mortgage with our strike fund". Source: https://twitter.com/adamconover/status/1679296015378030596
Let me tell you something. WGA's strike fund is $20 million. They have 20 thousand members. That's... $1000 per member.
That's not enough to cover all their members for "the long haul". It's a joke, and they'll fail.
Well, it makes no sense until you dig into the recent history of the industry.
- First we had Netflix rent DVD's over the mail.
- Then video on demand started displacing them, so they were focusing more on directly delivering content over the Internet, as the Internet was becoming fast enough for this, and they were installing caching servers at major ISPs to reduce their complaints on wasted bandwidth.
- Other studios saw Netflix may become a huge monopolistic platform for distributing content, that'll replace to a large degree other networks, so they created Hulu, then HBO GO (then HBO MAX, now MAX), Amazon made theirs, Disney made their, everyone was in on streaming wars.
- In these wars, exclusivity was one of the most important weapons. HBO have always had their own content, so now Netflix and others felt like they need to have theirs. Exclusive to them.
- So everyone started shooting shows, to fill out their library of exclusive content. Movies, series, from bargain basement B movies to top notch blockbusters, even Scorsese made movies for streaming.
- In the aftermath of COVID, everyone saw cooling down of home entertainment demand, and inflation also further cut into their userbase and revenue stream. But they had no choice, they had to keep making content, because everyone was making content and no one wanted to be left behind.
- Eventually they were starting to cozy up to the idea of "cease fire" where all the major stream vendors will slow down production or otherwise they'd all lose even more money. But there was no way to do this. How do you slow down production evenly? How do you measure it? How do you verify it? Who is first? On top of that existing long-term contracts on shows meant they had to keep production running out of legal obligation.
- Enter the WGA strike. A forced cease fire on all streamers to stop production. Force majeure means you can pause or cancel contracts. Blessing in disguise.
They don't want to shoot shows now. They want that strike. And this is why while writers have some fair demands (and some frankly absurd ones), they won't get what they want. Writers are screwed.
Well, they have the money to do it. There's so much free content around that a lack of new stuff coming down the pipe is not that big of a financial hurt for them.
It’s a total mystery whether, or how quickly, customers will cancel streaming services if there’s no new scripted content.
It’s possible they won’t for a long time. In that case, studios would keep a steady stream of income despite no new shows. That would greatly reduce the leverage that writers have. That’s the background to these studio comments.
Typically there has been a tight connection between new content and steady revenue. Studios needed new movies every month to generate income. Networks needed new episodes every week to keep audience up and advertisers spending. But streaming services auto-charge every month or year unless the consumer makes an effort to stop it.
I’ve already cancelled everything I can. Not because of the strike or anything like that but because streaming is so fragmented that it’s not cost effective anymore. I might want to watch something but it’s only available on the 1/2 of streaming services I don’t have at the moment.
Meanwhile the revenue from streaming probably isn’t enough to produce quality content; all the cool prestige series on streaming are backed by speculative investment money from the low interest rate era. Netflix, which probably has the best analytics and the least commitment to legacy Hollywood, has already pivoted to cheap “reality TV” content over their earlier prestige offerings.
The studios have always had the leverage you are talking about - Barbie releases this July, but was written in 2021. The problem for studios is every minute of the strike represents lost revenue 1-2 years from now.
>Typically there has been a tight connection between new content and steady revenue.
This isn't really true either, as content is hit based business not too dissimilar from venture capital. Sure you can always play it safe by milking an established brand but you always need to be running experiments.
Streaming services don’t need new hits to drive revenue, they only need subscribers.
Normally you’d say that a streaming service that is not producing scripted hits would lose subscribers to one that is. But if none of them are producing new scripted hits? The old hits might hold onto folks for a while.
At best that is only true for Netflix as all the other media companies are burning money trying to build their own streaming service. Worst case scenario is that people aren't as sticky, and will begin to cancel once there is nothing to watch.
I think Streaming services can add more international and unscripted shows to make it through the storm a lot longer than writers can sustain the strike.
Their biggest expense is the cost of producing new content, which is currently slowed / stopped. Streaming profits could ironically be looking good temporarily, until revenues start to drop as subscriptions get cancelled.
The fact that Disney is pulling some content from streaming implies that royalties are at least some of what is hurting them. I have no idea how TV contracts are written, but maybe Disney put less into the advance (and more into residuals) than other streaming services?
In previous strikes, writers have taken on other gigs to make ends meet.
It is a historically tight labor market. I wonder if studios are worried about that.
This whole thing could just make Lyft and DoorDash in LA slightly cheaper rather than seriously hurt (already underpaid, if the guild is to be believed) writers.
Writing for American TV and film is a very unique skill set and virtually everywhere you would work is covered by the union. All productions have been shut down.
The same union covers if you're writing in New York or Atlanta. And they're not going to pick up and go to London or Mumbai.
I mean...sure, you're right about the union, but that doesn't mean that there aren't people who write for TV, movies, ads, novels, fanfic...
...But creative writing in general doesn't tend to pay the bills on a regular basis without the exact types of residuals the studios are actively trying to take away from them. So they're already used to having to pick up side gigs or even have day jobs to make ends meet.
I don't know what you're trying to say. Someone who writes for TV, that is their day job. You can't have a job writing for TV "on the side", that's not a thing.
Writing novels is not a reliable source of income, and fanfic doesn't make money at all.
It's true that TV writers often do have to pick up some kind of work in between seasons, though it depends on the show.
You're right; you can't have a job writing for TV "on the side," because the schedules won't allow it.
But you also can't make a living writing for TV year-round (each gig is on the order of 2-4 months, from what I've read)...unless you earn enough residuals.
So...wait, that would mean that without solid residual schedules, TV writers...just can't make a living??!
And those residuals are exactly what the studios are trying desperately to take away from writers.
Union vover individuals only especially just Americans in this case. Production still can happen in Bollywood and Seoul producing exact thing American writers can while at a fraction of the cost. Union is basically toast if they want to drag this via attrition. I am seeing corporate will win outright to these unions exactly like what Reagan did with traffic air controllers.
> But in case you're not, writing for TV is a full-time job. It's not something you can do on the side.
Having more than one “full-time” job is not unheard of, and its particularly a thing where at least one of them is a precarious and/or poorly paid one.
Not in this case. Writing for TV owns your life while you do it. 16-hour days to meet an episode deadline, spending the whole weekend turning around a first draft script.
If you work in a professional TV writing room, you simply don't have another job on the side. It's not an option.
It's cold but... what strike doesn't work this way? This is the definition of a strike - you are holding out until the other party is suffering more losses than they can reasonably sustain compared to the costs of giving in; in order to obtain a favorable deal.
On that note... I'm not actually convinced "new content" is all that necessary, even though that is an intuitive assumption on my part.
Yeah, this. A strike is the definition of playing hardball. Let's not suddenly pretend that everyone is just trying to see the other side flourish as human beings and we care deeply about you personally.
Right. But take, for example, Warner Bros. Discovery.
$40 billion in revenue yearly, $50+ billion in debt needing servicing, annual gross profit $13 billion, Market cap $32 billion. They aren't exactly the world's healthiest company.
What's the plan? "World-class" Cost-cutting and price hikes, everywhere. Even if it's multiple 95%-finished movies (Scoob! Holiday Haunt, Batgirl), send them to the shredder for the tax write-off if their success is uncertain. Taking risks or releasing anything that possibly won't be a hit, is not affordable at the moment.
What about Disney? Disney+ is losing $4 billion every year, and now has a lawsuit ongoing about whether the projections of profitability were ever reasonable. And it has also become apparent to investors that the content deluge and the expectations it set has caused massive damage to Marvel, as well as Pixar's Box Office profits. Pixar's Elemental, for example, just had the second-worst box office opening after the original Toy Story... except that Toy Story opened with 28 years less inflation, and on a Wednesday. The good news for Disney is that Elemental has had quite a recovery, even if it almost certainly won't break-even.
Now you've got this quibble with the Writer's Guild; at the same time that making new content to prop up streaming numbers has never been under more scrutiny, and the pocketbook has not been such a concern in years. You can afford to take a break - heck, you might have even been considering taking a break anyway; and by taking a break you can theoretically win a better deal with the Writers to save even more money in the future.
Are you talking about money or creativity? It could be argued the late 1960s to mid 70s is the greatest creative output artistically, the New Hollywood style, and after that the start of the blockbuster age, which made more money anyone has ever seen.
This is true. Golden age, prewar and classic Hollywood are very profound and prolific periods of cinema. But I think the later iterations cannot be dismissed this disdainfully as something unworthy of attention or subpar.
>I'm not actually convinced "new content" is all that necessary, even though that is an intuitive assumption on my part.
I somewhat agree. I think that "new content" is certainly necessary, but I think there's a massive deluge of it, beyond what we actually might need/want - the volume could certainly decrease, IMO. But we digress...
The question is whether the prospect of a WGA deal (and, admittedly, having to go back to the table with SAG-AFTRA and IATSE) is so unpalatable to the studios that they're willing to take the hit of a significant gap in theater releases and a year of lost TV production, or if this is a last-ditch effort to scare the Guild into taking a deal as bad as the one the DGA bought into. This is also aimed at the actors, since their strike kicks off at midnight tonight if no deal's reached, and that'll bring everything to a halt -- not just in Hollywood, but abroad, too. (Also, it can't be lost on actors or below-the-line talent that AI is probably a greater threat to their jobs than to writers: I'm skeptical that LLMs are going to replace screenwriters in any serious way, but a whole lot of AI technologies are just on the cusp of being able to hollow out everyone from the cinematographer on down.)
I think the insistence that AMPTP is totally unified on forcing the writers into homelessness is a bit villainously overblown; sure, streaming-only companies like Netflix can weather this by just picking up more global content and unscripted work, but keeping the strike going through Q4 is going to expose some real strategic fissures between streamers, networks, and studios that cash hoarding alone isn't going to paper over, especially since the studios' bets on blockbusters and in-house streaming aren't paying off. If AMPTP is really serious about this, the studio chiefs could end up taking down their own companies by exposing them to potentially multiple quarters without significant new content availability. With IATSE negotiations coming up in 2024, it seems unlikely to me that the studios are willing to lose the rest of this year and then go right back into a strike situation.
> ...AI is probably a greater threat to their jobs than to writers: I'm [making an accurate observation], but [here's some other speculation.]
There are no LLMs writing scripts for TV productions today, and yet, WGA writers are out of work. Something political - I mean, something that is totally controlled by humans, and can be turned around with a stroke of a pen, if collectively - has the biggest impact on writers' work. Not technology. In case you're confused where my opinions lie, I do support the writers, because this is what they are actually asking for:
> But the fear is that studios will use AI to turn out a crappy first draft, and then turn it over to writers who they hire for a few days or a week to turn it into something good. And they won’t pay them as if it’s an original script. That is the fear.
The whole article is about how studios have a tool that could seemingly pass legal muster and abrogate a lot of the economic obligations they have when they start an engagement with a writer. Basically via tricks. It's about politics.
Writers want to use AI. They also want to use Google and pirate movies and TV shows and read other people's books and file the serial numbers off of the characters and do all sorts of things that have complex copyright implications. This isn't about luddites or whatever the fuck.
What they don't want is for studios to do tricks. They want "we will not use this to do tricks where we pay you to do something that has for the last 20 years meant X and then when it turns out you make us a ton of money, it will actually mean Y." That sounds like a reasonable contract term for me. If you see a trick coming from a mile away; if your opposing party has a trick-manufacturing machine overseen only by octogenarians, and you have collective bargaining power, what else can you do?
There's a lot of other stuff, like staffing requirements and increased pay, that the studios are frankly not in a position to concede on. This strike should have been staged in 2021, or not at all.
> that the studios are frankly not in a position to concede on. This strike should have been staged in 2021, or not at all.
You should look at the Sony hack and see for yourself what a studio does and how it is built. You don't have to rely on any speculation whatsoever.
I know gaming better. Steam gives away for free all the proprietary data movie studios hoard. A few people with Steam data, if they're numerate, can do the work of 1,000 movie studio people.
People are worrying about LLMs and economics and all this bullshit. It's all political, in the strict sense of the outcomes are controlled entirely by people and can change with the stroke of the pen.
The real thing the two sides should be worrying about is not this speculative AI bullshit or copyright law. It's how Hollywood is working more like the games industry does.
I've seen a dozen different posts and articles where people did the math, and showed that what the WGA is asking for, financially speaking (annually), could be paid out of a single studio's profits for a single quarter (at least, I think that was the degree of disparity; in any case, it was painfully obvious that the studios were being obscenely greedy).
The only way one can argue that the studios are "not in a position to concede on" these demands is if they take Wall Street's insistence on ever-increasing growth as mandatory, rather than purely for the benefit of increased bonuses for the already-very-wealthy people at the top.
> only way one can argue that the studios are "not in a position to concede on" these demands is if they take Wall Street's insistence
Sure, this. Management is constrained because, after the last years' spending and leverage binge, they are unusually dependent on investors. Investors who didn't like the past years of spending levels and demanded cuts. Cuts management promised and the WGA delivered.
> on ever-increasing growth
I don't think this is about growth. See this commentary on Discovery's equity [1]. The focus isn't growth, but servicing debt. If they give into the WGA, there are knock-on concessions to other unions, and altogether that could bankrupt them. Certainly quicker than not putting out scripted content.
To be super clear, I think the writers deserve better pay. But the strike doesn't make sense.
Oh nooooo if they have to service debt they might have to cut exec bonuses by 5%! How awful!
Oh nooooo if they have to give concessions to other unions, too, then more people might be able to live comfortable lives without having to bow and grovel every time an exec looks at them funny!
The strike is absolutely necessary, and it's about more than just pay right now.
First, it's about the near-complete loss of residuals as viewing shifts from TV to streaming (because the old contracts didn't cover it), which would, as I alluded to earlier, mean that writers would basically never have a stable income stream again. The entire visual-medium-writing profession would be consigned to lives of scraping together little jobs here and there to make ends meet.
While the studios raked in the billions in profit (not gross!) off the backs of the scripts those writers created for them.
And second, and possibly more importantly for the long-term viability of the industry as a whole, the studios are destroying writers' rooms. Traditionally, when writing a script, they'd hire a whole bunch of writers—including both senior and junior writers—and have them all work together on it for an extended period—possibly the entire run of a season, or most of the way through the production of a movie. This was a vital way for newer writers to gain experience and practice their craft.
Now, they're instead hiring a bunch of writers for a week or so, getting them to hash out the rough outline of a script, and then having one showrunner take over from there.
And what they're trying to do is get rid of that first step, and have ChatGPT do it, instead.
They're eating their seed corn, all to juice their profits in the short term, and totally ignoring what the long-term effects will be: fewer and fewer writers who have any experience actually writing for television and movies, on top of making sure to starve the ones they do still (occasionally) hire, thus driving even more out of the profession.
In short, if the studios get their way, they'll be guaranteeing a decline in quality of writing across the board for the foreseeable future, until eventually there's nearly no one human left who's both willing and able to do the job and still pay rent.
There is a poetry to it. It's all fake, all fiction, all a narrative (and whether or not the intended audience buys it). A trick of the light. Did we expect anything else out of this particular industry?
> that they're willing to take the hit of a significant gap in theater releases and a year of lost TV production
Practically every studio was announcing cuts to programming spend in the months preceding the strike. An industry-wide pause means nobody loses market share while delaying expenses.
My understanding is that it's companies like Netflix that are hardlining on the strike while Disney and other traditional studios have been more interested in negotiating.
Probably because, like you mentioned, Netflix can more easily lean on foreign content.
I think Netflix is being particularly shitty here because they negotiated unique terms with the unions 10 years ago under the guise of being a new business model. They aren't "new" anymore, they are an established player, they should have to play by the same rules as the big boys.
> They aren't "new" anymore, they are an established player, they should have to play by the same rules as the big boys.
Well, playing by the same rules as the big boys can also be attained if the big boys join the rules that Netflix negotiated (which are, of course, less favorable for the writers). I do believe that many studio executives will at least attempt to make use of this once-in-a-life opportunity. ;-)
> I'm skeptical that LLMs are going to replace screenwriters in any serious way
I have seen at least one movie that grossed a billion dollars that could have very well been written by an LLM. In fact, that was one of my immediate impressions while watching that movie. I don’t think it would be sustainable to do this across the industry but it could easily be done.
The angle is estimation of the resolve and prospects of the strike. Does WGA have a strike fund?
There is also a big difference between a factory that can’t be stopped for months and Hollywood that can operate without scripts until the box office will indicate that you actually need writers like last time. The studio plan might be to bust the WGA entirely.
The studios will bleed money from yearly superhero movie sales and WGA will starve because they long forgot how to write anything unique. Meanwhile talk show hosts will blabber and laugh at their own jokes to fill in the time just like they did during the 2008 strike.
General public once again will realize just how unimaginative and unfunny political commentators actually are without scripts and how much of the insight is actually meticulously crafted.
Not directly about the WGA strike, but it's interesting seeing the reactions here vs if this had been said by say, a tech exec about software engineers.
It's quite a bit different because tech people can go somewhere else. There won't ever be anything like an industry-wide union. I also have a hard time imagining what kind of tech company could survive a months long shutdown.
Couldn't many non-startups survive a months-long shutdown, especially if their competitors are also shutdown? For B2B, revenue is often booked quarters in advance, and salaries tend to be the largest cost-center.
Maybe they will use ChatGPT or Claude to write the scripts ruing the strike. The context is starting to get long enough to maybe do an actual script.
Perhaps as a bonus, we can get an uncensored version of ChatGPT/Claude. I suppose getting the following response too many times will be frustrating:
“I am an ethical AI. The actions you are trying to portray of Prince Aemond Targaryen do not meet the standards of ethical, non-harmful conduct. Would you like me to rewrite the script in a more ethical manner, respecting human rights?”
Flush with global money the studios and their mouthpieces hot shotted the industry to take advantage of streaming mania.
During covid with even more stupid money flowing in they burned through all the “content” for no reason.
When someone like Zaslav ignored the Yentaverse completely and adjusted the streaming approach to another bucket instead of a loss leader, they have positioned their companies for future revenue and success.
I was in a union for a long time so it’s not surprising the language or action companies use.
Zaslav is a caustic racist who deep-sixed the COMPLETED 2nd season of my favorite series from last year before it aired (the wonderful, intellectually-serious and emotionally-mature Pantheon). For a tax write-off. He lead what was essentially a cultural purge of nascent and even legacy media that appeals to progressives (many shows are no longer accessible legally through any streaming service). I will never put a dime towards anything he touches again, and I'm not alone.
At this point, I would not be shocked if Hollywood studios try to hire writers in Canada and other english speaking countries that are clearly not going to be participating in these strikes, to get some new content moving.
Given time horizons, seems like one of the inevitable long term options for them, is diversify writer rooms across countries with similar cultures to intended audiences
... but imagine that Disney, Warner Bros, literally ever major studio did that all at once. The WGA would have to blacklist them all - which would almost be certain implosion.
In that case, though it would be very extreme, the studios could theoretically announce that there are enough writers in the world that the WGA is no longer necessary - they'll just hire writers from Britain, France, Germany, wherever. They could also spin it as a good thing - greater diversity in film! And they can hire some cheap American non-WGA writers to Americanize the humor or references wherever needed.
That would, of course, break the WGA. The WGA's existence depends on major movie studios needing them. If the movie studios decide to adapt in a way that the WGA is unnecessary... they're dead, and no writer will stick with them, everyone will scab. The WGA would have to beg SAG-AFTRA and the DGA to strike on their behalf, but that would cause... lawsuits; lots of lawsuits; because is it legal for one union to strike to save another union?
If the labor dynamic were as one-sided as you seem to be making it out to be, WGA would have been broken a long time ago.
Turns out people like watching things written by the best writers - and plenty of studios would defect if they got to be the only studio with access to most of the best television writers in the West.
And it’s why unions have been losing collective bargaining power over the last couple decades.
The world is different now. Economy is global, people are trying to make a living doing something that makes them happy. Not everyone is a union member, and it’s absolutely ridiculous to extort a young professional from taking a career defining opportunity because a certain, very entitled group decides they want it even better.
Unions striking is within their right. Go for it. But it’s absolutely unacceptable to start blacklisting non-union people who don’t fall in line because the union doesn’t happen to have as much bargaining power as they would have liked.
Freedom of choice is fundamental and I have a choice as to who I work with. That I can use that power to coordinate with my peers for better pay does not transform a refusal to work with scabs into a coercive act.
The Realpolitik of strikes is "which side needs the other more." In particular in the US, the post-war labor regulations make it harder than in some other countries for the unions.
“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” a studio executive told Deadline. Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach, several other sources reiterated the statement. One insider called it “a cruel but necessary evil.”
> One insider called it “a cruel but necessary evil.”
What makes this necessary? What, except for the profits of the owners?
People like this should not be allowed to participate in modern society. They are taking everyone around them down to raise themselves a few millimeters.
>They are taking everyone around them down to raise themselves a few millimeters.
That's what we get for insisting that the stock market's rules run everything - where executives are bound by law to increase profits every quarter.
<sarcasm> Won't someone consider the plight of the bankers and analysts? </sarcasm> God forbid they are made to look bad when people making a banker's bonus as an annual salary want to protect their livelihoods.
The studio executives pretend that they are actually willing to let the respective writers insanely suffer (“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses”). Thus the studio executives pretend to be madmen with an iron will and ire to start a cruel long-lasting vendetta against every screenwriter who joins the strike.
I don't see any reason to see it as pretending. Ultimately they want to get rid of as much labor in the production pipeline as possible.
They see "replace all of them with AI" as inevitable and utmost required for profit maximization, and therefore, every extra day of a writer being hired for even the smallest compensation is, to them, a great act of charity towards undesired and eventually irrelevant workers. So writers and actors causing an issue in the face of that 'charity' is deserving of the harshest and coldest response possible.
The irrational part is supposed to be (since they don't have infinite financing) that they act like they DGAF about their own companies losing income and bleeding out on debt service, or their own stock prices cratering?
> they act like they DGAF about their own companies losing income and bleeding out on debt service
They literally just went to shareholders and promised to cut spending on new content.
This is not a madman act, it's fundamental leverage. The writers have no way to force negotiations in a game where they lose advantage with time. The studios' optimal strategy is to wait.
> since they don't have infinite financing
Pausing spending on new content is cash-flow positive in the short term. You know what makes shareholders prioritise the short term? High interest rates.
>>This is not a madman act, it's fundamental leverage.
Agree, also on the short/long term perspective.
I was only responding to the "madman" ploy part, and it does help if they portray a "We're fine, and we DGAF if we're not, as long as many of you lose your housing".
I just hope the writers are ready for a long haul, because if they can make it to a mid-long term strike, the studios will have real problems, especially if SAG maintains solidarity. Sitting out a season is one thing, sitting out an entire year or two is another. But they may need to last until next (2024) summer to win.
> it does help if they portray a "We're fine, and we DGAF if we're not, as long as many of you lose your housing"
Sort of? They'd have to make that second argument, though. Which aren't and don't need to. Because the strike is literally saving them cash.
> sitting out an entire year or two is another
The streaming space is crowded. Discovery is probably the weakest of the bunch, Disney the strongest. Which creates an interesting dynamic. Why would you agree to break the strike that will break your competitors first?
Yes, for the short term. I have a manufacturing business, and I save loads of cash when I don't make anything. The numbers look really good when production isn't running, and we're just selling existing inventory. Studio inventory has a bit more of a shelf life and re-sellability, but the demand for new content is insatiable.
>>Why would you agree to break the strike that will break your competitors first?
Agree; that is an interesting dynamic. But what is the negotiating model? Is it like the auto industry where one company makes a deal with the union and that deal becomes a template for the contract with all other companies, or is there a different model? Does the first company (presumably the weakest) that makes a deal set the stage for the others (& would they get help from stronger companies)? Or is it that all companies must make one agreement simultaneously, and what is that voting structure (majority of companies, unanimous, etc.)?
> numbers look really good when production isn't running, and we're just selling existing inventory
The mistake was made at the beginning. Studios shouldn’t have binged. The manufacturer shouldn’t have upsized. After removing sunk costs, the path forward necessitates cuts: the question is who pays for them. The WGA, by striking when it did, volunteered its members.
If you have to make cuts, and your personnel strike at the same time as all of your competitors, that’s a caviar-rimmed gift basket to management. They delivered on their promise to shareholders, and can count every minute of the grind as a sign of their fortitude.
> what is the negotiating model?
Dunno. WGA picked off studios at the last strike, so it was at least then an option.
I predict writers are going to lose. The last strike gave a big boost to realty TV and other craptacular media; a lot of consumers do not care about art or creativity and will cheerfully watch entertaining drivel. And the bar is already low; much of American media is incredibly boring, though honorable exceptions exist.
This is pure speculation, but I imagine there are plenty of people that could write a passable show, and would even do it for free if given the opportunity. Same with other art. What leverage do these writers actually have?
You end up with more Game of Thrones season 6. Where Benioff and Weiss (2 inexperienced writers) try to write a season without George R. R. Martin and turn it into a steaming pile of shit.
Yes, anyone can write a passable show just like anyone can write compilable code.
I think it's the opposite. Most of the people actually working as writers cannot write a passable show. Writing something original and compelling enough for people to watch all the way through is extremely difficult. One of the tricks of good movies and TV is the audience takes it so for granted after a while that it looks easy. Acting is similar. Most people think the only thing that keeps them from being an actor is looks. Try saying lines out loud and you will begin to see the problem. Try to write a pilot.
Look at the previous writers strike and what happened to shows like Heroes. Except now it's even worse now that we're in the streaming age. Netflix and other streaming platforms want a half or full season written before the greenlight a project, rather than just a pilot episode. The quality will dive just like in did last time, and people will unsubscribe or just stop watching Netflix which is the last thing they're going to want.
A passion for the work and a desire to work in the industry.
And I'll go a step further and seize on the word "passable". Would you rather watch a show that's simply good enough to "pass" as a show, or something of higher quality? Plenty of people can write something that you could pass off as a show, but I'd imagine that that number drops as you reach for something of a higher caliber.
There are plenty of people with passion. That's not significant leverage.
As for quality, it's not clear to me that current shows/movies are even that good in terms of writing. If you are a truly talented writer that can make/break a work you should have similar leverage to a director or lead actor, but studios don't think you are and that's why you're in a union. Maybe if your buddies that are actually talented gave a creditable threat of committing career suicide that would be good leverage, but it doesn't seem like a real threat when top talent will always be paid well.
>There are plenty of people with passion. That's not significant leverage.
Passion "for the work", not necessarily simply writing a show itself. I'm talking about being in a writer's room with others for eight-plus hours a day, dealing with the opinions of others, being OK with having your ideas axed because some producer didn't like it for whatever reason, the process of pitching ideas, and everything else the job entails.
Every strike has threat of scabs. Scabs can be fought back against, but scabs are also not loyal to the owners and will leave when the bonus pay doesn't keep coming in
Absolutely no implication that unions are loyal, no
Oh, no. Those late night comedians might actually have to think up their clever monologs! Like they did when they were struggling stand-up comedians. They might have to interview their guests as if they actually knew anything about them.
This is true, but does it matter? I do not miss the nightly funnies at all, although I used to watch most of them regularly (my wife likes comedy). Part of the issue in my view is the American tendency to max out on everything. Nobody can be consistently funny as you say, but these shows ran 405 nights/week because it's easy to sell cheap laughs, just like it's easy to sell cheap burgers and fries. In many ways these shows are the opium of the people, letting people blow off a little steam before falling asleep and then getting up the next day to work again.
Late night TV shows as a format are way, way past their sell-by date. I think they'd do well to experiment with other formats and delivery channels, before they get canceled altogether.
>Noah’s premiere episode as The Daily Show host in September 2015 garnered 3.47 million viewers, directly on par with Jon Stewart’s final episode a month prior.
> That year, The Daily Show averaged 1.1 million viewers, lagging somewhat behind broadcast shows like NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (3.78 million), CBS’ The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (3.17 million) and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2.53 million), according to Variety.
"Those are not comparable!" you say? Exactly. Rogan and Gross are people who have one guest at a time and actually talk to them. It's pretty clear that audiences are starting to prefer that.
Does that bother you for some reason? All of TV audiences have plummeted for individual shows, because we're all watching different things now.
But I think the majority of late night viewing may be on YouTube the next day. It certainly seems to be thriving there. At least when there isn't a writer's strike.
I don't know why you personally want talk shows shut down. Many millions of people enjoy them, and if that pays their bills, then what does it matter to you?
It's not like 12:00 am is a super coveted slot that they're taking away from something else that would be more popular at that time.
No, does it bother you to see late night shows attacked? Apparently it does since you keep replying.
This was originally a comment about the late night shows shutting down for lack of writers.
If TV executives are considering dropping them altogether and turning the time slot back to local stations, that must mean they're really doing worse than the other shows.
This sentence doesn't even parse:
> Many millions of people enjoy them, and if that pays their bills,
whose bills? the "millions" who enjoy them?
> It certainly seems to be thriving there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTmk7X8vGQk has 3.3M views, and that's a "best of" collection. What's the viewership each day, and is that the whole show or just a few excerpts?
> No, does it bother you to see late night shows attacked?
You literally started by telling them to "Just shut down" and criticizing hosts for not writing all their material. All your comments indicate you're bothered. It's just curious to me that rather than simply not watch the shows, you're actively attacking them and wishing they'd shut down.
>> Many millions of people enjoy them, and if that pays their bills,
> whose bills? the "millions" who enjoy them?
Pays the bills of the networks. In other words, if the shows are profitable. They wouldn't keep going if they weren't profitable.
Then it would have been obvious what was going on. But I hate being obvious. It ruins the impact.
The opening, "Oh, no. Those late night comedians might actually have to think up their clever monologs! Like they did when they were struggling stand-up comedians. They might have to interview their guests as if they actually knew anything about them." was supposed to serve that purpose.
You think late-night shows are bad and you think they should end.
I got that from the start. There's no irony involved with that.
But there are lots of people who like late night shows as well, which is what keeps them on the air and on YouTube. TV shows shouldn't end just because you don't like them.
Hollywood execs would claim they'll hold out indefinitely, if they thought anyone would remotely believe their claim.