NEW YORK (AP) — Late-night TV shows like “The Tonight Show” and “The Daily Show” will begin airing reruns Tuesday as unionized screenwriters soured by lower wages in the streaming era went on strike for the first time in 15 years.
Some 11,500 film and television writers, represented by the Writers Guild of America, put down their pens and laptops after being unable to secure a new deal with the trade association, which represents Hollywood studios and production companies.
The industrial action could have a cascading impact on TV and film productions depending on the length of the strike, and streaming services are under mounting pressure from Wall Street to report profits.
Late-night television was the first to feel the effects, just as it did during the 100-day writers’ strike of 2007.
All of the top late-night shows, staffed by writers writing monologues and jokes for their hosts, immediately went dark. NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” Comedy Central’s “Daily Show,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” CBS’ “The Late Show,” and NBC’s “Late Night” all scheduled repeats throughout the week.
NBC didn’t immediately comment on plans for Saturday Night Live. The sketch show is set to air a new episode on Saturday, which will be hosted by Pete Davidson.
“Everyone, including myself, hopes that both sides will reach an agreement. But I also think the authors’ demands are not unreasonable,” host Stephen Colbert said on the Late Show on Monday.
“This nation owes so much to unions,” Colbert said. “Unions are why we have weekends and therefore why we have TGI Fridays.”
The impact of the strike on scripted series and films will take longer to be felt; those with finished scripts are allowed to continue shooting. During the 2007 strike, late-night presenters finally returned to the air and improvised their way through the shows.
A late night show doesn’t go dark. Fox News’ Gutfeld!, starring Greg Gutfeld, will continue to air new episodes, Fox said Tuesday.
The Authors’ Guild is seeking higher minimum wages, fewer typists, shorter exclusivity contracts, and an overhaul of residual royalties—all conditions that have been curtailed in the streaming boom.
“Corporate behavior has created a gig economy within a unionized workforce,” the WGA said in a statement.
Pickets were planned Tuesday in Los Angeles and New York, including outside the Manhattan building where NBCUniversal is holding an event for advertisers for its streaming service Peacock.
In Los Angeles, writers plan to demonstrate outside the offices of Walt Disney Co., Netflix, Amazon, Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount, CBS and Sony.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios and production companies, said it had presented an offer with “generous increases in author compensation, as well as improvements in streaming residuals.”
The trade association said in a statement that it was ready to improve its offering, “but was unwilling to do so because there are many other proposals on the table that the guild continues to insist on.”
A shutdown has been forecast for months. The authors voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike last month, with 98% of members in favour. Writers say their salaries aren’t keeping up with inflation, TV writers’ rooms have shrunk too much, and the old calculus for paying out residuals needs to be reassessed.
Streaming has exploded the number of series and films produced each year, meaning more jobs for writers. But writers say they’re making less than they used to while working in tighter conditions.
The guild demands more compensation for authors in advance. That’s because many of the payment authors that have historically benefited on the backend — like syndication and international licensing — have been largely phased out by the start of streaming.
More authors—roughly half—are receiving minimum rates, a 16% increase over the past decade.
Hollywood’s trade association said Monday that the main sticking points in a deal revolved around so-called mini-rooms – the guild aims to have a minimum number of writers per writer’s room – and the length of employment contracts.
The guild has said more flexibility is needed for writers when contracted for series, which tend to be shorter than the once-standard 20-plus episode airing season.
Many studios and production companies are cutting back on spending. The Walt Disney Co. is cutting 7,000 jobs. Warner Bros. Discovery is cutting costs to reduce its debt. Netflix has pumped the pauses in spending growth.
It will take longer for films to be affected and if a strike lasts through the summer television schedules could be altered for the fall. Meanwhile, not having authors available for paraphrases can have a dramatic impact on quality.
The James Bond film Quantum of Solace was one of many films that went into production during the 2007-2008 strike with what Daniel Craig called “the bare skeleton of a screenplay”.
“I tried to rewrite scenes – and I’m not a writer,” Craig later said.
With a long-awaited strike, writers have rushed to submit scripts and studios have tried to prepare their pipelines to continue producing content, at least in the short term.
“From a business standpoint, we’re assuming the worst,” David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, said last month. “We got ready. We had a lot of content being produced.”
Overseas series could also fill part of the gap. “We have a large base of upcoming shows and movies from around the world,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said on the company’s April conference call.
But the WGA strike could be just the beginning. Both the Directors Guild of America and the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA have contracts that expire in June. Some of the same issues surrounding the streaming business model will feed into these rounds of negotiations. The DGA is expected to begin negotiations with AMPTP on May 10th. ___
AP Media Writer David Bauder in New York contributed to this report.
Follow AP film writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP