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Hollywood writers decide to go on strike: What that means to which shows and movies

Television and movie writers declared late Monday that they will launch a strike for the first time in 15 years, as Hollywood girded for a walkout with potentially widespread ramifications in a fight over fair pay in the streaming era.

The Writers Guild of America said that its 11,500 unionized screenwriters will head to the picket lines today. 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 this morning Pacific time. All script writing is to immediately cease, the guild informed its members.

The board of directors for the WGA voted unanimously to call for a strike. Writers, they said, are facing an "existential crisis."

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. The AMPTP said it presented an offer with "generous increases in compensation for writers as well as improvements in streaming residuals."

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."

More on the situation:

The talks

Months of negotiations, primarily over writers' pay for streaming shows, have still left considerable distance between the two sides: The Writers Guild of America - whose East and West versions are technically two unions that act as a unit in these talks - and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents Hollywood's studios, streamers and production companies in negotiations.

Many in the industry acted as though a strike is inevitable. Eleventh-hour deals have been common in the past. The last time a writers strike seemed imminent, in 2017, a deal was reached in the hours immediately after the contract expired. Last year, an agreement was reached two days before the deadline to avert a strike of 60,000 Hollywood crew members.

Talk shows hit first

Late-night talk shows, heavily dependent on same-day, current-events-based comedy writing, will be the first to feel a strike's effect. The shows have been the de facto frontline during previous writers strikes. Shows like NBC's "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" and ABC's " Jimmy Kimmel Live!" are scheduled to air new episodes. They'll shift to reruns if writers don't work.

"Saturday Night Live" has a slightly longer production timeline but is even more dependent on its writers. A strike could upend the last three episodes of this season, starting with Saturday's show with host Pete Davidson.

The status of daytime talk shows, which lean more into host chats and interviews, is less certain. ABC's "The View" was uninterrupted during the last strike in 2007-08.

Scripted shows

A strike's impact on scripted series will take far longer to manifest. Even daily soap operas tend to have scripts completed many months in advance. Noticeable effects on the movie release calendar could take even longer.

The menus on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video will look no different next week, but because this would be the first writers' strike of the streaming era, there is no template for how they will look months down the line.

During the last strike, when broadcast and cable networks with well-established seasonal schedules were still predominant, many shows, including "30 Rock," "CSI," and "Grey's Anatomy," shortened their seasons. Unscripted reality television grew in strength at the time. "Big Brother" and "The Amazing Race" both increased their output. "The Apprentice," hosted by Donald Trump, got new life when a celebrity version of the shelved show was created to help fill the scripted void.

The stakes and pay

Streaming and its ripple effects are at the center of the dispute. The guild says that even as series budgets have increased, writers' share of that money has shrunk.

Streamers' use of smaller staffs - known in the industry as "mini rooms" - for shorter stints has made sustained income harder to come by, the guild says. And the number of writers working at guild minimums has gone from about a third to about half in the past decade. Writers of comedy-variety shows for streaming have no minimum protections at all, the guild says. The lack of a regular seasonal calendar in streaming has depressed pay further, the report says. And scheduled annual pay bumps have fallen well short of increases in inflation.

The weekly minimum for a staff writer on a television series in the 2019-2020 season was $4,546, according to industry trade outlet Variety. They work an average of 29 weeks on a network show for $131,834 annually, or an average of 20 weeks on a streaming show for $90,920. For a writer-producer, the figure is $6,967 per week.

Some who defend studios and producers say that's far from the poor-house picture writers present publicly.

AMPTP leaders say their priority is "the long-term health and stability of the industry" and they are dedicated to reaching "a fair and reasonable agreement."

THE STRIKING WRITERS

A full stop to work will mean major economic losses for screenwriters, though many say it's worth it to fight the day-to-day dwindling of income.

Guild strike rules prevent members from striking new deals, making new pitches, or turning in new scripts. They are allowed to accept payment for any writing that's already been done.

Those known in the industry as "hyphenates," including showrunners who act as head writer-producers, performer-writers, and people like Quinta Brunson of "Abbot Elementary" who do all the above, are allowed to do the non-writing parts of their jobs under union rules, though that work may be minimal as they seek solidarity with their writing staffs.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF STRIKING SCRIBES

Writers have gone on strike six times, more than any group in Hollywood.

The first came in 1960, a Writers Guild walkout that lasted nearly five months. Strikes followed in 1973, 1981, and 1985. The longest work stoppage, lasting exactly five months, came in 1988.

The 2007-2008 strike was resolved after three months. Among the main concessions the writers won were requirements that fledgling streaming shows would have to hire guild writers if their budgets were big enough. It was an early harbinger of nearly every entertainment labor fight in the years that followed.

Writers Guild of America (WGA) writers and others strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers in a rally at Fox Plaza in Los Angeles' Century City district on Nov. 9, 2007. Television and movie writers on Monday declared that they will launch an industrywide strike for the first time since 2007, as Hollywood girded for a shutdown in a dispute over fair pay in the streaming era. Associated press
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