Three months into the Hollywood writers’ strike, there may be ultimately some signal of motion. When the writers walked off the job on Could 2, the Alliance of Movement Image and Tv Producers (the group representing the studios) ended negotiations, and no talks have occurred within the 14 weeks since. However on Tuesday, the AMPTP knowledgeable the Writers Guild of America that it needed to fulfill “to debate negotiations,” because the guild instructed its members. That assembly is meant to occur immediately.
What the AMPTP (which can also be coping with an actors’ strike) must say is anybody’s guess, however we all know what the 2 sides will in the end be arguing about: streaming. As a result of, at coronary heart, this can be a conflict over the way in which streaming has modified the flicks and, extra necessary, tv.
Writers, for example, wish to take pleasure in a share of the upside when streaming exhibits develop into hits, simply as they as soon as loved sizable residuals—a seamless share of income from rights when broadcast exhibits they wrote went into syndication. (In the meanwhile, writers get small residual funds for streaming exhibits however reap no further profit if a present turns into an enormous hit.) However that might require streamers to supply viewership information for his or her exhibits—info they would like to maintain to themselves.
When studios rent a showrunner to develop a present, the WGA desires a minimal quantity of writers employed for the “pre-greenlight room,” the place scripts are these days routinely written earlier than a present is formally picked up. And, maybe above all, the union desires studios to return to creating greater writers’ rooms when exhibits are in manufacturing. That might contain adopting minimum-staffing necessities and abandoning the decade-long pattern towards so-called mini rooms.
These might look like wonky points, however they boil right down to a easy thought. The writers are attempting to reclaim the bottom they’ve misplaced due to the ascent of 1 firm: Netflix.
We’re all used to the concept Netflix has modified the way in which TV is consumed. But it surely has additionally modified the way in which TV is produced.
Netflix’s seasons are shorter—not simply shorter than the standard 22-to-24-episode seasons frequent on broadcast TV, however shorter even than the 12-to-13-episode seasons that was once commonplace on pay-cable networks similar to HBO. Netflix habitually pays extra for its productions up entrance, however as a result of it did away with the syndication mannequin and retains its viewership information to itself, it has additionally restricted the upside for writers.
Most necessary, not less than so far as the strike goes, Netflix ignores the social norms that had lengthy ruled TV manufacturing: It has usually carried out away with massive writers’ rooms, changing them with mini rooms. Because the identify suggests, mini rooms (which had been pioneered by AMC however have now develop into widespread within the {industry}) have fewer writers. Whereas previously, a typical TV present might need had 10 to 12 writers, mini rooms might need solely three or 4.
However the adjustments transcend that. In conventional writers’ rooms, which nonetheless exist on some TV exhibits, writers are paid by means of the precise manufacturing of the present. Particular person writers generally additionally act because the present’s producer on particular episodes, and even junior writers get the prospect to study the ins and outs of constructing TV: They’re on set whereas exhibits are filmed, they usually work with showrunners on enhancing and post-production. In impact, writers’ rooms should not nearly writing scripts. They’re additionally about coaching the subsequent era of writers to make and run their very own exhibits sooner or later.
A mini room may be very totally different. Writers’ tenures are shorter, and their job scope is narrowed: They’re there purely to write down, or in some circumstances simply buff, scripts. The alternatives to study different facets of present manufacturing have principally vanished.
Writers’ rooms, in truth, had been by no means written into any WGA contract, seemingly primarily based on an assumption that enterprise would proceed as common. However Netflix, maybe as a result of it was coming from exterior the {industry}, had no real interest in enterprise as common. So it discarded the outdated norms. And as different studios tried to maintain up with Netflix, they did the identical.
One result’s that regardless of an explosion within the variety of TV collection being produced (and subsequently a rise within the variety of folks writing for tv), the sum of money going to writers has not likely risen in recent times. On prime of that, exhibits make use of fewer writers, and writers now get loads much less hands-on expertise.
So the WGA desires to convey again the writers’ room. The guild’s contract proposals embrace minimum-staffing necessities (one author per episode, plus one other author for each two episodes after six, as much as a most of 12 writers) and a requirement that not lower than half of the writers keep employed all through the manufacturing of the present, with not less than one author staying by means of post-production. This, the WGA argues, wouldn’t simply be good for writers; it’d even be good for the {industry} as an entire, as a result of it could encourage the regular manufacturing of recent showrunning expertise.
That’s not improper. However the issue for the writers ought to be apparent: Netflix is the one streaming firm that’s incomes substantial earnings from its enterprise. (Actually, Netflix and, to a lesser extent, Hulu are the solely two main streaming firms which can be worthwhile in any respect.) That’s partially as a result of streamers are investing closely up entrance to construct content material libraries and purchase subscribers. Even so, Netflix’s inventory has the very best valuation and the very best price-to-earnings a number of within the {industry}. The corporate has develop into a bellwether for the studios, the mannequin that everybody else—explicitly or implicitly—is making an attempt to repeat. Accordingly, to persuade Netflix that it ought to cease making exhibits the way in which it’s been making them, and to persuade the opposite studios that they need to not emulate Netflix, might be a difficult job.
That’s particularly so as a result of the writers are attempting to roll again adjustments which have already occurred—with outcomes that Netflix and its buyers are fairly glad with. (If the writers had written minimum-staffing necessities into their contracts in, say, 2007, and the studios had been solely now making an attempt to do away with writers’ rooms, the dynamic can be very totally different.) And though it’s true that the disappearance of writers’ rooms will in all probability harm the standard of recent exhibits sooner or later, that’s an industry-wide difficulty. Even when the studios collectively profit from younger writers getting broader on-the-job coaching, any particular person firm would like that everybody else pays for that coaching, which it may then get a free trip on.
The problem shouldn’t be that going again to larger writers’ rooms would truly price that a lot cash—the quantity studios spend on writers is a tiny fraction of their general price range. It’s that the apply runs counter to the optimizing, efficiency-maximizing ethos that Netflix delivered to the {industry}. And that very same battle is on the coronary heart of one other battle between the writers and the studios, this one over AI: The WGA has proposed guidelines barring AI from writing or rewriting literary supplies, or getting used as supply materials; the studios have stated solely that they’ll decide to holding annual conversations about technological advances.
So far as we all know, no studio is but utilizing AI rather than human writers, and at current, any try to take action appears unlikely to end in a great script. However the writers can foresee, and are attempting to forestall, the day when efficiency-hungry studios will use AI to generate tough drafts that writers will then be requested to shine. As with mini rooms, that wouldn’t be ultimate for creativity or high quality, however it could actually be extra environment friendly.
Serious about the type of deal the studios and the WGA may finally attain, it’s simpler to think about the studios compromising on AI than eliminating mini rooms. The WGA might be able to maintain robots from writing scripts sooner or later; a lot much less clear is whether or not they’ll have the ability to win a deal for extra people to write down them.
