The Writers Guild of America and AMPTP (the producers alliance) announced a tentative agreement on Sunday. This potentially marks the end of a strike that’s contributed to the shutdown of Hollywood for nearly five months. The terms remain undisclosed and must be ratified by more than 11,000 members of the guild. Union leadership urged members not to return to work immediately, but to wait for authorization from the union. Meanwhile, SAG-AFTRA’s strike continues as actors fight for many of the same concerns as writers.
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What’s behind the deal?
Kim Masters, the host of KCRW’s “The Business” and editor-at-large for The Hollywood Reporter, says the proposed agreement includes minimum staffing in writers’ rooms, increased compensation for successful streaming shows, and some kind of AI protection.
“The big sticking point that was to the bitter end yesterday was artificial intelligence,” says Masters. “And we don't know exactly how that's framed. But obviously, writers don't want to be handed a script generated by AI and be told to give it a polish or something. So we will see what that language is.”
Increased compensation for residuals is also a big deal, she notes. Companies have agreed to pay for success in streaming, which could be determined via metrics from a third-party company like Nielsen.
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“A hard time for studios”
It took five consecutive days of renewed negotiations to reach this deal. On the studio side, negotiators included Disney’s Bob Iger, NBC Universal’s Donna Langley, Warner Bros.’ David Zaslav, and Netflix’s Ted Sarandos.
“It’s a hard time for studios. Their business model is changing. People are cutting the cord. They're losing a lot of money on streaming,” Masters explains. “So for them, I think some of this was just very destructive. And I think the conclusion and why this thing finally got to resolution is because there was a fear on the part of some of these leaders that if this continued beyond the end of September, say, it would permanently damage the industry.
“It's not good when you're trying to lure people back to theaters to have suddenly got no fresh material. It's not good on your cable bundle or wherever you get shows, either, to have a drought.”
Masters contends that the AMPTP didn’t realize how resolute the WGA would be during their strike. “They hung very tough and the studios maybe were not prepared for that. So it paid off. Maybe the reason they didn't come to this conclusion sooner is because they were thinking, ‘Well, we’ll save some money short-term.’ But at a certain point, it became a tipping point.”
More details on the WGA’s agreement with the AMPTP could be revealed on Tuesday.
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Many KCRW staff are members of SAG-AFTRA, though we are under a separate contract from the agreement at issue between actors and studios.