“David Zaslav has never dealt with labor at this level, Bob Iger is clearly busy cleaning up his mess, Donna Langley doesn’t really know television, and Ted Sarandos was the architect of many of the industry’s problems,” he said Studio source. Photo Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty
The second-longest strike in the history of the Writers Guild of America ended on September 26th, and while a deal with the actors has yet to be worked out, the joy and relief that so many in the industry are feeling right now cannot be overstated . While the new deal does not solve the many problems facing the entertainment industry on a macro level, the WGA has scored a major victory in its battle with the studios, securing profits that will make a real difference in the lives of its members. And yet the mood in Hollywood is not just euphoric; There is also a sense of disbelief – and even anger – that it took 148 days of collective misery to reach an agreement, the details of which were hammered out in less than a week of actual negotiations. As one veteran writer puts it, “These companies have been destroying people’s lives for five months for no reason, even though they could have made the same deal on day one.”
Even those who argue that the Guild is not innocent admit that the Summer of Suffering was completely unnecessary. “Considering where they ended up, it never had to take this long,” concludes a veteran executive. Another source on the studio side goes even further, arguing that even if one shares management’s opinion that the WGA has become “radicalized” in recent years, it’s hard not to conclude that this is due to failure of the CEOs who drove the alliance’s negotiating strategy and the film and television producers made matters worse. “David Zaslav has never dealt with labor at this level, Bob Iger is clearly busy cleaning up his mess, Donna Langley doesn’t really know television, and Ted Sarandos was the architect of many of the problems the industry has,” said the source says. “And then there was Carol Lombardini of the AMPTP, who fought in the last war [over previous contracts]. It was bad everywhere.”
As television historians try to make sense of this summer, one of the biggest topics of discussion will likely revolve around why Hollywood conglomerates decided to go out of business entirely while they were already deep in crisis with the dismal new entry-Peak TV -Reality. The theory of managerial incompetence is certainly a possibility, but for others the motivating factor was even more fundamental: money. “They really had no interest in solving the problems until they had put a few quarters of their savings into their pockets,” says the veteran manager, repeating a sentiment often heard from industry insiders even before the strikes began. Given the burden of streaming debt and the market’s tendency to prioritize profitability over subscriber growth, the entertainment giants assumed that a few months of spending freeze would have a short-term positive impact on their bottom line. At the same time, studios hoped that a weakened WGA would settle for a cheaper deal to save a few more cents – and, more importantly, make the gods of Wall Street happy. They also expected to quickly secure contracts with the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild, which would further increase the pressure on writers to settle for less.
Of course that didn’t happen. While the DGA was content with the relative crumbs offered by the AMPTP, the SAG, led by Fran Drescher, was undeterred and ultimately went on strike in mid-July. The actors’ strike left many studio sources I spoke with in real shock. SAG’s move also gave the writers a huge boost of energy and influence, turning what many at the studios expected to be a two- or three-month break into a five-month disaster. “When SAG came out, anyone with half a brain knew it was different,” says a longtime showrunner. In theory, this labor solidarity should have persuaded the studios to make serious concessions and send the CEOs to the negotiating table immediately. Instead, two more months passed with very little movement – but a lot more pain, especially for the workers. “The absolute harshness of the media companies during these negotiations was completely immoral,” says the veteran author, a judgment echoed by the longtime showrunner: “This whole thing didn’t have to hurt as many people as it did for so long,” he says. ” This is a studio decision and a devastating moral judgment.”
The studios, for all their money, had nothing to do with the power of WGA membership. –Cynthia Littleton
But it would be wrong to claim that the studios have simply lost the war that has been unfolding over the last five months. The fact is that Hollywood unions have won at almost every turn in their battles with management, both big (WGA-SAG solidarity, showrunners sticking with their lower-paid writers, public opinion) and small (stopping filming TV shows, etc.). Films before the SAG strike that caused Drew Barrymore and Bill Maher to reverse plans to return to work). “The studios were outwitted by the Writers Guild,” says Cynthia Littleton, co-editor of industry bible Variety and author of TV on Strike: Why Hollywood Went to War Over the Internet, which chronicles the saga of the 2007-08 WGA work stoppage. Littleton argues that the WGA “had goals and a pretty clear strategy for how to get there,” along with what she calls the guild’s secret weapon: its rank-and-file members. “The studios, for all their money, didn’t have the power of WGA membership,” she says. In contrast, “the AMPTP had a political agenda that was different from a strategy. It played a very traditional ground war, and in that environment it absolutely didn’t work.”
In fact, Littleton and sources on both the writing and studio sides say members’ actions – particularly on social media – played a major role in the outcome of the strike. In the early days of the strike, Twitter helped the WGA mobilize members to target films and series still in production, shutting them down long before the SAG strike began. “Twitter suddenly became very useful again,” jokes one author. “Someone like Warren Leight in New York started tweeting where he needed members, and I was able to amplify that from Los Angeles. We were able to support each other in unprecedented ways.”
Additionally, social media served as a daily antidote to flagging morale and a means of fending off studios’ attempts to spread the strike’s narrative through media leaks. As reports emerged of showrunners pressing WGA leadership on the status of strike talks, writers flooded Twitter to quell suggestions that these talks were signs of waning solidarity. “The moment something like this came out, we had a way to communicate our side,” says the WGA author. Social media’s power to shame dissenters has also likely convinced any wavering showrunners to keep disagreements largely to themselves. “Some showrunners in 2008 got away with undercutting their own craft in ways that wouldn’t be allowed today,” says the veteran showrunner. “I mean, they absolutely beat the crap out of Drew Barrymore.”
Taken together, all of these factors led to what was achieved this week: a new deal between the WGA and the studios that was far better than most industry insiders had predicted before the guild pulled out in May. Of course, the guild’s victory does not mean that it has completed all of the questions asked before being eliminated. But the AMPTP was forced to make significant concessions on all of the key problem areas outlined by the WGA, even after studios insisted for months that such issues — like minimum cast sizes or performance-based bonuses — were not new issues. The WGA also scored victories in smaller items where it had been unsuccessful for decades. “There’s no way to twist this: it’s a huge victory for the WGA,” Littleton says.
Among the highlights:
➼ Streaming residuals are tied to a show’s performance. For the first time in a guild contract, streamers have agreed to performance-based residuals, something they once swore would never happen. Starting next year, if an original show or movie produced for a streaming platform is viewed within 90 days of its premiere by the equivalent of 20 percent of that platform’s domestic subscriber base, creators will receive a bonus in addition to existing balances (up to $16,400 -Dollar). for TV episodes and $40,500 for films with a budget of at least $30 million). This bonus rate will continue to apply in the future if a shipment reaches the 20 percent threshold again within a 90-day window in a new calendar year. It’s a significant concession from studios, which had long argued that they were already rewarding creators by paying them much more money upfront than networks did in the linear age. And yet this groundbreaking concession also contains some major stars.
For one thing, the new terms don’t apply to older library shows (sorry, BoJack Horseman) or a library series produced for Linear. Those “Suits and Ballers” reruns that were a blast on Netflix this summer? No extra coin for them. Additionally, industry insiders believe that only a small percentage of streaming originals will break the 20 percent barrier, based on the limited viewership we’ve seen so far. “It will be a tall hurdle to overcome,” Littleton said. But the real win for the WGA here was simply getting the studios to give the guild insight into their data and buy into the concept that big hits should be evaluated on a different level. “No, ‘Suits’ or the next NBC drama that gets held back and sent to Netflix won’t see anything, but our foot is in the door,” argues one showrunner. Littleton agrees: “It’s huge to bring new language into the deal,” she says, noting that what happened this summer will set the stage for the WGA and other guilds to do even more in future negotiations demand. Littleton adds that a similar situation occurred in 1985, when the WGA received backlogs for cable shows, and again in 2008, when it got studios to admit that streaming shows have value, period.
➼ Almost all programs now require a minimum number of authors and guarantees for the duration of their employment. This has been a big priority for writers, who have seen streamers try to force showrunners to make shows with far fewer writers than historically normal – in part because the number of episodes has been reduced, but also because the Production plans have changed. Now, a typical eight- or ten-episode series requires five writers to be employed, and at least two of them must stay on the team for at least 20 weeks. This addresses concerns that the streaming model (including so-called “mini-rooms”) makes it impossible to train the next generation of showrunners, as all episodes of a show are often written before a series begins filming. “Staff and mini-rooms are a gigantic win,” says one showrunner, arguing that even if the WGA only gets about half of the minimum number of writers it requires, the new contract will go a long way in encouraging younger writers have the opportunity to learn the business.
➼ The studios gave the writers protection from artificial intelligence. The new contract makes it clear that AI cannot be used to write or rewrite a script, and while studios can use existing scripts to train AI models, the contract gives the WGA options to challenge this use. There are also new rules requiring disclosure when using AI technology, as well as flexibility for authors who want to use AI as a tool. Again, no one believes that this language eliminates the existential threat that AI could pose to the creative industries, but Littleton argues that the technology is so new that it may have been impossible to find a language that was completely acceptable to everyone. “No one can define it, and no one wants to commit to terms that cannot be removed from a future contract,” she says. “But they had to deal with it because it had become such an issue with membership.” As with the residuals, Littleton believes that the inclusion of AI language – which appears to be the first time a large working group has had any protection from it of emerging technology – serves as a marker for future contract negotiations. “It’s a big, flashing red light that says they’re going to address this in the next discussions.”
➼ The WGA secured major successes on “small” issues that have long plagued authors. The studios made many long-sought concessions by WGA negotiators on issues that didn’t receive much attention in contract negotiations but are nonetheless incredibly important to many writers. For example, film writers will finally receive guaranteed compensation – and get paid faster – when they submit a second draft of a film. Writing teams working on television shows now have a much easier time qualifying for WGA health insurance because the full amount of their script fees counts toward the annual minimum, rather than the portion they share with a partner. And newly hired writers now get paid when they write a script, which amazingly wasn’t the case before. “They checked so many little things off their wish list,” Littleton said of the WGA negotiating committee. A veteran showrunner agreed, saying he was overwhelmed when he read the details of the new contract on Tuesday. “It’s like you’ve been living in this crappy apartment where there are holes and cracks, and then one day they come and fix 90 percent of the bad things,” says the author. “These were marginal things, but they got a lot of them. There are dozens of things that are important to many people.”
While the writers are enjoying their victories this week and the studios are just happy that a deal even happened, no one is under the illusion that this deal will solve the real, serious and even existential threats facing creative talent and their well-being are. compensated bosses. For one thing, a deal with SAG has to be struck before cameras can roll on feature films and scripted TV shows. Talks are due to begin on Monday and there is optimism that the WGA deal will provide a framework for a relatively quick deal. “The conventional wisdom is that they’ll close the deal immediately,” says a studio source, though not without adding a warning: “You really can’t rely on anything these days.”
Assuming AMPTP and SAG make peace within a few weeks and cameras roll by the end of October, the television industry in particular will still be back to where things were before the writers put down their digital pens in May. “Peak TV was a bubble, and that bubble burst,” says one Hollywood executive. In fact, long before Hot Labor Summer became a reality, streamers were already cutting development staff, reducing series orders, and generally preparing to leave the era of 600 scripted shows per year behind them.
This is an important fact to keep in mind over the next few months, especially if a SAG deal closes. The AMPTP and its members remained largely quiet this week, giving minimal boost to the Hollywood trade and generally accepting the narrative that they had suffered a major defeat. But once all peace treaties – also known as labor agreements – are officially ratified and signed, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see studios use their considerable PR resources and launch a counteroffensive. We’re already seeing this in places like The New York Times’ The Daily podcast, which attempted to blame the rising costs of streaming and impending cutbacks in TV show orders on the strike. There’s a good chance executives will try to push this narrative in the future by blaming the deep cuts everyone knows are coming on the gains the writers (and presumably the actors) are making at the negotiating table have. Simply put, this is bullshit. “People were already retreating and getting ready to spend less, then by chance there was a strike,” says the veteran manager. “Maybe the strike sped things up a little, but there was already a decline. When blisters burst, it’s painful.”
Even if studios and streamers choose not to rely on a “blame labor” strategy to drive the workforce cuts still to come in the post-peak TV world, the reality is that some serious corrections need to be made in Hollywood . Yes, the authors are overjoyed that this week’s headlines are that the unions have won in a major battle. They are also energized to be part of a growing movement of workers pushing back against the growing pay gap between employees and employers, a divide that is just as real in the entertainment industry, even as some key talent earn huge amounts of money. But the anger mentioned above about what just happened is very real. “I will never understand why they had to risk us failing,” says one indulgent author. “Just to save something, not even that much money? Why not be human? It was shameful behavior. We will conveniently forget about it because we have to work with them. But we will never forgive.”
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Previously, entry-level writers received their salary as staff writers, but not the bonus that other writers received when their name was on a script.