The Hollywood Strike Drags on Because of One Stumbling Block: Studio Greed

The median pay for a weekly writer-producer has declined 23% over the past decade and half of all TV writers are paid WGA minimum.

From The Guardian:

The reality is that show business is doing fine, as confirmed by strong earnings, sky-high executive pay and summer box-office hits — Barbie, Oppenheimer and Mission Impossible. Besides, studios today are diversified entities that own streamers, TV networks, theme parks, cable properties and sundry and foreign operations.

Disney’s streamers — Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN — boast billions of dollars in revenue. That, plus 12 theme parks, five cruise ships, Pixar, Marvel and others, made for a profitable 2022.

Comcast/Universal/NBC is a $120bn company that doesn’t rely on movies as much as it leans on its cable TV monopoly. Sony is a multinational with electronics, games, image sensors and Columbia Pictures under its roof.

Some studios are just arms of a Frankencorp — a mish-mash of discordant parts. In 2022, the men behind the new $43bn Warner/Discovery/CNN merger borrowed some $50bn, fired 1,000 workers, and tarnished the HBO, TCM, and CNN brands. There may be a catchy slogan about Discovery’s bird programs and Food Network shows (Polly Warner Cracker?). But Jack Warner’s once-lean studio now epitomizes bloated conglomerates that squeeze employees and customers.

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If the AMPTP would accept the WGA’s proposal of 6%, 5% and 5% increase in wages and base residuals over three years, it’d cost the studios about $500m a year — or 0.5% of the $210bn revenues they collected in 2022. Bean counters call that a rounding error.

I just don’t think a reasonable person can “both sides” this situation. The AMPTP companies’ greed is that ingrained that they can’t give up 0.5%?

Meanwhile because of their intransigence, VFX workers are taking steps to unionize while Korean actors in Netflix originals want better pay.

Think they aren’t motivated by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes? If the AMPTP had negotiated a deal early on, they might not be facing additional worker uprisings.

The studios’ greed led them over a cliff in pursuit of streaming “gold.”

Will their greed lead to the demise of the film and TV industry?

To read the rest of The Guardian article, go here.

For the latest updates on the strike and news resources, go here.

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