The streaming world? It’s a mess. (Yes, that’s meant to be read in Sebastian from The Little Mermaid’s voice.) Labor disputes largely revolving around the shift to streaming from traditional cable, and an increased desire to use AI in ways that would replace writers and actors, have wracked Hollywood for months; consumers are showing growing frustration with lower quality programming; and no one from Wall Street to Main Street actually knows how any of these platforms are performing (but they sure as heck keep charging us more). Back in July, I wrote that streaming is broken and the strikes could save it. Or at least part of it. And now, in the wake of a tentative deal between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), that sentiment feels truer than ever.
While the AMPTP still needs to return to the bargaining table with the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), it’s impossible not to feel at least a little hope that the tentative WGA agreement may be the first sign that real change is about to start happening.
Streaming as a medium is at a crossroads, largely thanks to the ongoing strikes. It's currently faced with the choice of evolve or die, but meaningful change takes time and neither process is going to happen quickly. Still, five months of striking certainly seems to have started to get the wheels in motion.
Here’s what the WGA said to its members on Sunday after the tentative agreement was met:
“We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional – with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.” (You can read the full message on the WGA website.)
But let’s talk about what this means for film and television, the creators who make them, and us, the fans moving forward.
AI in Hollywood
Artificial intelligence has been a huge sticking point in the negotiations for both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. While AI can be a tool to help improve our lives, it’s become clear that Hollywood executives mean to use it for labor replacement rather than the quality of life improvement tool that can be. (The proposed process is that scripts are produced by AI and then meant to be detangled by a writer rather than just using humans throughout the process — something any professional can tell you is a completely untenable workflow that also happens to be a tremendous waste of time, not to mention creatively dubious to say the very least.)
For SAG-AFTRA, it means having their likeness reused ad nauseum, in some cases without prior approval. Many background actors have already reported having their likenesses scanned without the awareness that it would be used again later. Meanwhile, voice actors are hearing their voices pop up in projects they did not participate in.
If you haven’t enjoyed the weird, uncanny looking de-aged folks in things like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, lemme tell ya — you’re going to have a bad time when they’re complete digital replacements. WGA and SAG-AFTRA drawing hard lines in the sand on this key issue isn’t just critical for their livelihoods, it’s also critical for the quality of the art that we enjoy as viewers.
This might not be a uniquely streaming issue, but the pursuit of unlimited Content™ in the streaming era is largely to blame for this push. Filling roles for a thousand different churn-and-burn series that the viewer will never think about again is expensive work. Why pay for that work when you can scan someone’s face and place a thousand proverbial monkeys at typewriters and churn out something that someone will watch? (Ethics. The answer is ethics. And that we don’t need to be chasing 50 shows about nothing when we could have, like, one show about nothing — we all need pointless distractions — and four series that actually put in the effort to be good.)
We don’t yet know the specifics for the WGA’s AI clause in its new contract, but we know that it’s most certainly a part of it. Here’s hoping it’s as good as the WGA negotiating committee is making it seem, and that it sets the groundwork for a similarly solid deal for SAG-AFTRA.
Minimum Staff Sizes in Writers’ Rooms
As the demand for more and more shows grew in order to accommodate the voracious appetite of the many streaming services, writers' rooms started getting smaller and smaller until they shrunk to the dreaded mini-room. The shortest way to explain why they’re bad is to say that all of your favorite creators hate them. The longer way to describe it has been expertly outlined by our news team.
The bottom line for you? Television in particular is a collaborative medium. Mike Flanagan may be the creator of The Fall of the House of Usher, but his writers’ room consisted of himself, Justina Ireland, Dani Parker, Jamie Flanagan, Emmy Grinwis, Matt Johnson, Rebecca Klingel and Kiele Sanchez. According to IMdB, twenty-five writers helped create the now-Netflix phenomenon Suits throughout its tenure. Eight writers helped bring Firefly to life during its single season. Twenty-two kept The Sopranos at the table during its long run.
With the exception of The Fall of the House of Usher — a series created by Flanagan, someone with enough clout to demand whatever sized writers’ room he wants thanks to the success of previous films and numerous series like The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass — all of these are older series. So let’s take a look at something current with immediate examples: AMC’s impeccable Interview With the Vampire series was created with a full staff. Meanwhile, the lesser-received Mayfair Witches operated with the dreaded mini-room.
There are a whole host of reasons why mini-rooms are bad for the writers who work in them. But the impact on viewers is there as well. Longform storytelling as told in television only benefits from full writers’ rooms (up to and including keeping the teams involved throughout the season to ensure any changes fit with the overall narrative of the show as it unfolds).
If you want less Content™ and more art, minimum staff sizes for writers’ rooms and the removal of AI as an art replacement is a big step towards getting it. (Which, again, while we don’t know deal specifics, it seems that at least something along these lines has been hashed out between the negotiating committees.)
The Numbers Game
I’ll be honest. This is more of a selfish desire as a Streaming Editor rather than an overarching “this will help you as a general consumer,” but we’ve got to get to a point where we have real-time and transparent streaming data. For the WGA, knowing these numbers means that they can chase performance-based residuals (as should have always been the case, and was back in the time of traditional cable’s heyday). For me, it means I have a better idea about what y’all want to hear about, what stories I should be chasing as an editor, and where the surprise sleeper hits are hiding.
So, I guess that does ultimately help us all. If, that is, whatever agreement they reach means those numbers will be public. Previous AMPTP offers have included clauses that would allow a couple of guild representatives access. WGA turned that offer down, but it’s unclear how much headway was made in this regard. If they made major headway and those numbers do end up transparent like we all hope, it could also help folks decide whether or not all these dang price hikes are actually worth the money. (Which is most certainly a contributing factor in the streaming networks desire to keep them private.)
Either way, we’re also creatures of empathy so we’re happy that people are getting paid what they deserve when they make something great no matter what!
The Strikes Can’t Possibly Solve Everything?
You’re right. They can’t and won’t solve all of the issues facing the streaming world. Some of these issues will still be topics of conversation during next year’s IGN State of Streaming event, too. Change takes time on the best of days, and issues will slip through the cracks.
Right now, marginalized screenwriters are worried they’ll fall to the wayside as streaming starts to contract in the wake of these new deals and as the great streaming bubble finally pops. That contraction is a good thing overall, because it means there will be less of “let’s throw something against the wall and see what sticks,” but it will also mean fewer chances for new writers.
“Writers from historically marginalized communities are the first ones who suffer when the belt tightens,” Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, vice president of the WGA East and co-chair of its Committee for Inclusion & Equity told The Hollywood Reporter.
These concerns are reasonable given Hollywood’s history, and mean that we have to be more vigilant than ever in our calls for diversity both in front of and behind the camera. What we can’t do is just let marginalized creators pay the price as streaming figures out how to be a viable business model. Our control may be limited, but that’s why voting with our dollars and our views is always so, so important.
The lack of physical media and overarching threat to film and television preservation issue still stands, and isn’t really something that a WGA or SAG-AFTRA strike could resolve even if they wanted to (many creators want to). That is and will always be a studio and distributor discussion that boils down to licensing rights. The only way we as consumers can help here is by continuing to purchase the physical media we love when we can, and to support preservation efforts like TCM.
What’s the Deal?
There’s also ultimately a chance that the deal isn’t as glowing as folks want to believe in these moments before full details are released. No one wants that to be the case, but it’s not set in stone, either. WGA membership still has to ratify the contract (read: vote on it), and given how long they’ve fought, it seems unlikely that they’re going to take anything less than they deserve.
What the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are fighting for is intricately tied to the streaming world not because AI, writers rooms, and lack of transparency are the only issues facing the medium, but because their proverbial lines in the sand on these issues highlight the core problem streaming is facing right now: it has to evolve or die.
The workers are sick of not being paid for their labor; the viewers are sick of disjointed 6-episode seasons that take their intelligence for granted; and the idea of unlimited growth is (hopefully) gone forever, causing the streaming bubble to officially pop. If things don’t change, streaming will die.
WGA could release the terms immediately after this column publishes, highlighting a deal that’s ok-but-less-than-everyone-hoped for. But they could also release the terms immediately after this column goes live and change the lives of their guild, SAG-AFTRA, and the rest of the industry forever. (Or until someone else introduces a new medium that sounds great but also kind of breaks everything.)
I’m choosing hope. I hear rebellions are built on that, after all.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/now-is-the-time-for-streaming-to-evolve-or-die