Hollywood screenwriters, who write the series that reach us from the United States, announced a strike on Tuesday, after negotiations with representatives of studios and platforms failed.
A scent of crisis is spreading through the corridors of major Hollywood studios. In the early hours of Tuesday, thousands of American television and film screenwriters announced they were going on strike. According to local media, the first demonstrations should start this afternoon.
This announcement follows the failure of negotiations between this essential trade body for the production of films and series and representatives of studios and platforms.
“Corporate behavior has given rise to an economy of odd jobs”, denounces the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the union of screenwriters, in a press release relayed by Reuters.
“Their inflexible posture in these negotiations betrays a commitment, and will devalue the profession of authors a little more,” she continues.
According to Reuters, the WGA represents around 11,500 screenwriters based in New York and Los Angeles, the two hearts of American entertainment, but also in other cities. Their last strike, which occurred fifteen years ago, halted the production of many series, many of which had their seasons cut short or delayed.
• Why is this strike happening now?
Variety reports that the three-year contract between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), representing major studios and platforms including Disney and Netflix, expired on Monday.
The shadow of a shutdown has been hanging over Hollywood for weeks: on April 18, WGA members voted in favor of a strike if no agreement was reached by this deadline, as the indicated CNN at the time.
As expected, the threat was carried out when the AMPTP announced late Monday that the negotiations “have been concluded without reaching an agreement today”.
• What are the scriptwriters asking for?
As summarized by AFP, screenwriters are demanding an increase in their remuneration, minimum guarantees to benefit from a stable job and a greater share of the profits generated by the rise of streaming.
They say they are struggling to make a living from their trade, with wages stagnating or even falling due to inflation, while their employers are making profits and increasing the salaries of their leaders.
They believe that they have never been so numerous to work at the minimum wage set by the unions – according to statistics from the guild relayed by Reuters, this was the case for a third of screenwriters between 2013 and 2014, compared to half today. According Varietythe overall request from the screenwriters would amount to 600 million dollars – or nearly 550 million euros.
• Why did their situation deteriorate?
Several parameters are taken into account to explain the precariousness that the screenwriters deplore. And the advent of streaming platforms, which have profoundly changed the American television landscape, has a lot to do with it.
The New York Times argues that ten years ago, when the series were only watched on television, each season was equivalent to about twenty episodes. At the time of platforms like Netflix, Disney +, Apple TV + or Prime Video, these seasons have been drastically shortened, with around ten episodes each.
The rise of platforms has also led to a drastic cut in another source of income for screenwriters, “residual rights”. For decades, screenwriters received these revenues each time the works in which they had participated were reused, for example during television reruns or DVD sales. It is either a percentage of the revenue earned by the studios for the film or show, or a fixed sum paid for each rerun.
Conversely, when they work on series written for Netflix, Prime Video and the like, the authors receive a fixed amount each year, even in the event of global success of their work as for the series Bridgerton or Stranger Thingsviewed by hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide.
The WGA is calling for the revaluation of these amounts, which they now consider “far too low in view of the massive international reuse” of these programs.
The screenwriters’ union has also made clear its desire to put in place safeguards against the progress of artificial intelligence which, in time, could put the profession in danger.
• Why do negotiations stall?
The AMPTP claimed to have presented a “comprehensive proposal” including an increase in the remuneration of the screenwriters but not to be willing to improve this offer “in view of the magnitude of the other demands”.
According to its press release, the WGA’s demands for a “compulsory staffing” constitute one of the main points of disagreement. This device would force the studios to hire a fixed number of screenwriters “for a given period, whether they are necessary or not”.
In addition, the studios point out that “residual rights” paid to screenwriters reached an all-time high of $494 million in 2021, compared to $333 million a decade earlier, largely thanks to the explosion in screenwriter jobs linked to the rising demand for streaming.
Having been spendthrift in recent years, when rival broadcasters have sought to boost subscriber numbers at all costs, the bosses say they are now under heavy pressure from investors to cut spending and make a profit. And they deny pretexting economic difficulties to strengthen their position in negotiations with screenwriters.
• Which programs will be affected?
The first victims of this strike will be the American talk shows, ultra-popular second or third part evening shows across the Atlantic which are largely based on scripted sequences. The shows of Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers will all go on hiatus starting today, according to Deadline. Most of these presenters expressed their support for the screenwriters.
Difficult, for the moment, to say if the series will also suffer from this strike. “The platforms and the major broadcasters have stocks, there is no problem for 2023”, reassures Fabrice Leclerc, cinema journalist at Paris Match, on BFMTV. Nevertheless, the question would begin to arise if this strike were to drag on, blocking the development of future seasons. This is what happened fifteen years ago.
Because this situation is not unprecedented. In 2007-2008, a scriptwriters’ strike put the American audiovisual industry on hold for 100 days. AFP reports that it had cost the sector two billion dollars. Many seasons had been shortened: Gossip Girl, Grey’s Anatomy or How I Met Your Mother had revised their numbers of episodes downwards.
