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Dear John,
Why are TV writers on strike? Aren’t they living the glitzy Hollywood life of movie stars, red carpets, and limousines?
Any writer will tell you: This couldn’t be further from the truth.
In fact, writers in the television and movie industry are facing similar challenges as workers throughout our economy: a consolidation of wealth and power in fewer and fewer individuals and corporations.
Only for television writers, these trends have also been exacerbated by the rise of streaming and changing models of compensation. Writers’ contracts haven’t kept up with these changes, leaving writers earning less than in the past, even as the industry’s profits have soared.
Stand in solidarity with the striking writers! Click here to view a video explaining the writer’s strike, and send a message directly to the CEOs of Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and HBO Max to support the writers’ demands now!
In the past, a successful show went on to syndication and re-airings on broadcast television. Because most of the content providers’ revenues came from advertising, every time a show was re-broadcast it brought in additional advertising dollars -- and so the writers, actors, and other creators would receive residuals.
These residuals would make up a good part of a writer’s compensation, and writers whose shows were especially well loved could keep earning residuals on their hits while moving forward to create new shows.
Now with the shift to streaming, audiences watch what they want, when they want, and content providers are paid almost entirely by subscriptions.
Writers’ contracts, though, have not made this shift. Shows that in the past would earn a writer thousands of dollars in residuals on a regular basis now bring in very little. A show that earns a writer $13,000 when it is first aired on, say, ABC, may then pay as little as $700 when it is streamed on Hulu, HBO Max, or Disney Plus a short time later.
The problem is compounded by content providers’ strategies to drastically reduce the residuals they pay by taking favorite shows off streaming altogether. This is one of the reasons why we can’t find many of our old favorites on streaming services like HBO Max.
At the same time that compensation models are changing, the studios have also started to trade in the “Writers’ Room” for what is now called the “Mini Room.”
In the past, when a pilot episode was successful, it was “ordered to series,” and a writers' room was set up, with the writers certain to get at least a few episodes produced and aired. Experienced writers with a track record of success could contract for higher salaries, rewarding proven talent and skills with increased compensation over time as in most careers.
In a “Mini Room,” on the other hand, a smaller number of less experienced writers are selected to create a handful of scripts, without any commitment that any of the scripts will ever be produced. They are paid a smaller amount for their efforts, but the challenges and hard work of creating complex and compelling characters and stories are just as great.
The upshot is that in an industry where the studios are bringing in unprecedented revenues -- ballooning from $5 billion across all studios in 2000 to $30 billion in 2019 -- writers are not being adequately compensated for their efforts.
To show your support for the striking writers, check out the video, and use our simple tool to email the CEOs of Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and HBO Max and support the writers’ demands today!
Thank you for helping bring the writers of your favorite shows fair compensation, and for reminding the big entertainment companies that they depend on writers to create the original content we enjoy!
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
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