WGA strike: Hollywood film and TV writers go on strike

»Update: Hollywood writers go on strike; SNL and late night talk TV shows expected to go dark first

A historic number of Hollywood TV and movie script writers say they support a strike if recent contract demands aren’t met. Now, a walkout could be imminent.

The Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are at an impasse. Writers say they want better compensation and protections. Their existing contract expires Monday.

If the two groups don’t come to an agreement, writers could halt work. It would mark the first writers’ strike in 15 years and experts say the stakes are higher than ever.

Here’s what you need to know.

The Writer’s Guild of America represents more than 20,000 TV and film writers. The group was formed in 1921 and its members work on TV shows, movies, podcasts, documentaries, animation, news outlets, and more.

The WGA is negotiating contract terms with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — the group that represents about 350 different TV and film companies. The contract is renegotiated every three years, meaning there have been five contract negotiations between the groups since the last time WGA went on strike in 2007.

There are two key issues surrounding WGA’s contract demands and what might prompt a walkout: streaming services and artificial intelligence.

The WGA says that even though streaming services initially created more jobs, studios have kept costs down and wages low, despite increasing inflation. Streaming shows also typically have shorter seasons with longer breaks than their network counterparts, meaning less pay for a job.

On the movie side of things, according to Vox, the median screenwriter pay is the same today as it was in 2018. After factoring for inflation, that’s equivalent to a 14% wage decrease. The WGA also said that screenwriters who are making less money are more likely to be asked to do additional uncompensated gruntwork, like script rewrites and “mini rooms,” the practice of a small group workshopping a script for low pay before it’s picked up for production.

As far as how AI factors in, the WGA wants contractual safeguards that protect against the use of AI to take work — and, in turn, payment — from writers.

» READ MORE: Local artists sound off on AI art generators

Union leaders say that AI could wipe out writer jobs en masse without proper contractual protections. The WGA’s goal is to get these protections folded into the new contract. Deadline has published a full list of WGA’s demands.

As noted by Vulture, negotiations began March 20, but the groups haven’t reached an agreement. WGA members voted to approve a strike if a contract wasn’t reached by midnight Monday. A strike could begin as soon as 3:01 a.m. Eastern Tuesday.

The last time there was a writers’ strike, it lasted 100 days, bringing the production of shows and movies to a halt and costing the Los Angeles economy an estimated $2 billion. Popular shows at the time, including The Office and Scrubs, were forced to end their seasons early.

Because of the potential strike’s timing, it could impact TV shows and movies already scheduled for production as well as live shows. According to Deadline, late night and other live-format shows would be hit first.

Saturday Night Live’s last three episodes of the season would be impacted. Late night talk TV shows, like The Tonight Show, which are written the day the show is filmed, would not be able to go on as scheduled without a script. In the 2007 strike, the shows were forced to pause and air re-runs instead, which impacts viewership numbers and revenue. In some cases, shows pivoted to lengthy celebrity interviews or swapped out time slots for reality TV shows.

Last week, Late Night’s Seth Meyers addressed the contract negotiations during the monologue portion of his show.

“I am deeply proud of the fact that I get to be a professional writer,” he said. “If a writers’ strike happens that would shut down production on a great many shows.”

Meyers added that the WGA’s demands “were not unreasonable.”

Next, a strike would impact daytime soap operas, which film on a rolling schedule.

In what Deadline describes as a “worst-case scenario,” theatrical releases could also need to be rescheduled, but it’s less clear what movies would be directly impacted since film production takes longer than TV shows.

Episodic network television could also be hit, depending on the strike’s length.

“A work stoppage in May could delay the network television season, which continues to account for one third of all episodes produced, including 45% of the episodes produced by legacy media companies Disney, Paramount Global, and Comcast NBCUniversal,” WGA said. “Writers on fall network series typically begin work in May and June in preparation for series premieres in September and October ... Any delay in the start of work has the potential to postpone fall season premieres and could ultimately reduce the amount of new programming produced for the 2023-2024 network season.”

And yes, that could include Philadelphia’s beloved Abbott Elementary.

Following a highly anticipated season two finale that earned nearly 3 million viewers, the ABC comedy is supposed to host a writers’ room for the next season on Monday — the day WGA’s contract expires, Deadline reported.

During a recent WGA award ceremony, Abbott Elementary writer Brittani Nichols spoke in support of the union’s demands.

“What we’ve seen over and over are studios are trying to find loopholes to not compensate us the way we should be compensated,” she said. “When you’re stressed out and don’t have enough time and don’t have enough resources, it’s going come across in the material, so it’s best for the business to treat writers appropriately.”

Other TV shows that could be impacted include Yellowjackets and Andor.

WGA’s deadline for a contract agreement is Monday at midnight. The group’s East and West leaders are posting updates on social media as well as on the group’s website. WGA has already published 2023 strike rules in anticipation of the walkout happening.