Netflix has pumped the breaks on spending growth. Discovery is cutting costs to lessen its debt. Many studios and production companies, which bargain as the trade association Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, are slashing spending. The guild has said more flexibility for writers is needed when they’re contracted for series that have tended to be more limited and short-lived than the once-standard 20+ episode broadcast season.Īt the same time, studios are under increased pressure from Wall Street to turn a profit with their streaming services. The AMPTP said Monday that the primary sticking points to a deal revolved around those mini-rooms-the guild is seeking a minimum number of scribes per writer room-and duration of employment restrictions. The use of so-called mini-writers rooms has soared. More writers-roughly half-are being paid minimum rates, an increase of 16% over the last decade. Many of the back-end payments writers have historically profited by-like syndication and international licensing-have been largely phased out by the onset of streaming. The guild is seeking more compensation on the front-end of deals. In a statement, the AMPTP said that it was prepared to improve its offer “but was unwilling to do so because of the magnitude of other proposals still on the table that the guild continues to insist upon.” The AMPTP said it presented an offer with “generous increases in compensation for writers as well as improvements in streaming residuals.” The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the trade association that bargains on behalf of studios and production companies, signaled late Monday that negotiations fell short of an agreement before the current contract expired. No such deal could ever be contemplated by this membership.” “From their refusal to guarantee any level of weekly employment in episodic television, to the creation of a ‘day rate’ in comedy variety, to their stonewalling on free work for screenwriters and on AI for all writers, they have closed the door on their labor force and opened the door to writing as an entirely freelance profession. “The companies’ behavior has created a gig economy inside a union workforce, and their immovable stance in this negotiation has betrayed a commitment to further devaluing the profession of writing,” the WGA said in a statement. Writers, they said, are facing an “existential crisis.” The board of directors for the WGA, which includes both a West and an East branch, voted unanimously to call for a strike, effective at the stroke of midnight. All script writing is to immediately cease, the guild informed its members. Negotiations between studios and the writers, which began in March, failed to reach a new contract before the writers’ current deal expired just after midnight, at 12:01 a.m. The Writers Guild of America said that its 11,500 unionized screenwriters will head to the picket lines on Tuesday.
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