Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Television

Hollywood Studios and Writers Guild Reach Tentative Deal to End Writer's Strike (yahoo.com) 154

"After several long consecutive days of negotiations, the Writers Guild of America and the labor group representing studios and streamers have reached a tentative deal on a new contract," according to the Hollywood Reporter.

"We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional," the Guild's negotiating committee told its members in an email, "with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership." The Hollywood Reporter calls the news "a major development that could precipitate the end of a historic, 146-day writers' strike."

Details from the Los Angeles Times: The proposed three-year contract, which would still have to be ratified by the union's 11,500 members, would boost pay rates and residual payments for streaming shows and impose new rules surrounding the use of artificial intelligence...

With the tentative pact with the WGA done, entertainment company leaders are expected to turn their attention to the 160,000-member performers union, SAG-AFTRA, to accelerate those stalled talks in an effort to get the industry back to work. Actors have been on strike since mid-July...

The writers' strike was, in many ways, a response to the tectonic changes wrought by streaming. Shorter seasons for streaming shows and fewer writers being hired have cut into guild members' pay and job stability, making it harder to earn a sustainable living in the expensive media hubs of Los Angeles and New York, guild members have said.

The studios came into negotiations with their own set of challenges. The pay-TV business is in decline because of cable cord-cutting and falling TV ratings, which have eroded vital sources of revenue. At the same time, the traditional companies have spent massively to launch robust streaming services to compete with Netflix, losing billions of dollars in the process.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Hollywood Studios and Writers Guild Reach Tentative Deal to End Writer's Strike

Comments Filter:
  • Darn it (Score:5, Informative)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday September 24, 2023 @11:50PM (#63874511)

    I've been really enjoying the Strike Force Five podcast [wikipedia.org]... and now it's probably gonna end.

    Good for the writers, though (seriously).

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Indeed, it's been a rare glimpse into just how unfunny and generally boring these people are without their writers and a laugh track.

      In many ways, it's as eye opening as trying to watch Friends without the laugh track and recognizing that it's nowhere near as funny or representative of life in a US city at the time of its filming. And recognizing that much of it is just selling of a specific lifestyle to you.

    • Does the agreement include actually writing good stories rather than rehashing old ones with changing the character skin colour
  • At the same time, the traditional companies have spent massively to launch robust streaming services to compete with Netflix, losing billions of dollars in the process.

    Maybe, just maybe, they should have gotten behind one central platform for all streaming needs instead of fracturing into Broadcast TV 2.0.

    • Maybe, just maybe, they should have gotten behind one central platform for all streaming needs instead of fracturing into Broadcast TV 2.0.

      Everything new will have a kind of battle over standards. People that looked into the history of electrical standards should be familiar with the standards wars from the early days of utility electrical service, a fight that in some ways is still going on. Then there's various "format wars" for audio and video media. The Internet Protocol wasn't always the only game in town for getting computers to talk to each other. How many different kinds of serial ports are there? How many different kinds of USB p

    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Maybe, just maybe, they should have gotten behind one central platform for all streaming needs instead of fracturing into Broadcast TV 2.0.

      You mean like Cable TV? Because that's all that was going to happen with one central platform - it would literally be Cable TV all over again. At this point, why even bother?

      Cable TV delivered over the Internet - all the cost, none of the infrastructure. You'll be paying $200/month for TV plus another $100/month for internet.

      And the movie industry went with the separate

      • by Calydor ( 739835 )

        Counterpoint to iTunes: Steam. iTunes' biggest flaw was that it strongly restricted what hardware you were allowed to use. Steam, while obviously focusing on Windows, does not. If you have a PC, regardless of manufacturer or home-build, you can get games from Steam.

        By the time iTunes opened up other avenues it was too late; other players had entered the field in the form of eg. Spotify. Which, again, has/had pretty much everything available to everyone.

        For the vast majority of the population, a one-stop-sho

  • by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Monday September 25, 2023 @12:34AM (#63874557)

    South Park's joke about how Family Guy episodes are made has only become more and more appropriate with time, so it has to be mentioned here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Oh well, writers need to eat and are generally even more broke than actors and comedians.
  • Jeez, you're writers. You can do that anywhere. Take advantage of the same underlying technology that streaming media companies are using to supposedly reduce your income and, I don't know, write something people actually want to watch. And who the hell wants to live in L.A. or New York these days? Feh.

    • by skam240 ( 789197 )

      And who the hell wants to live in L.A. or New York these days?

      Going by the property values, one hell of a lot of people.

  • Thank God they are back. I can't wait for the next seasons of brilliant shows like "She-hulk" and "Velma".

  • ... while we all say, "Who cares?"
  • The set makers deserve royalties every time their work is shown! /sarcasm

If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are real good, you will get out of it.

Working...