The WGA - The Writer's Guild is striking as of May 2, 2023 for greater pay and more of a stake in the development of productions. The writers held out for 5 months in 2007 - 8. This one may stretch on as long. With streaming and smaller windows/venues for the viewing public, the networks are dependent on lots of creative ideas. But for the writers, there has not been a significant bump in salaries and job security commensurate with what they hope would be a living wage.
Below is a graph from the Writer's Guild which reflects how much of an impact the writer's ask would have on the overall Networks' budgets. It feels like a David v Goliath scenario, but stopping all productions does make executives anxious about their audiences' tolerance for this. Also it may allow the networks to cut and run from some outstanding agreements that were not going to be profitable in the long run. Here's hoping this squeeze play gets the leverage the writer's want to get a pay increase. All TBD.
