Ahead of the strike, writers fromThe Bear, CSI: Vegas, and more tell us what it’s really like behind the scenes
Writers from across the entertainment industry have been sharing their experiences online. The A.V. Club talks to some about writing in the streaming era
Aux Features Brittani Nichols
From the outside, writing for television seems like a prestigious and glamorous job. These are the people working behind the scenes to create Hollywood magic. They’re the people who come up with the stories everyone’s talking about around the water cooler (or, maybe more accurately, on Slack). We might assume that those people enjoy, if not fame and fortune, at least comfort and stability. Yet that’s increasingly not the case—even for writers working on a bona fide, critically-acclaimed hit series.
“I have friends who believe, ‘Oh, Alex worked on The Bear, Alex is rich now. Alex can buy a car.’ And you know, I’m not. I’m broke,” writer Alex O’Keefe tells The A.V. Club. “[When] I won the WGA Award for The Bear for Outstanding Comedy Series, I had a negative bank account. My suit was bought by my family and friends, and my bowtie was bought on credit. All that glitters is not gold.”
O’Keefe is one of many members of the Writers Guild of America who took to Twitter to share his industry experience in the lead-up to the strike vote. Those who spoke up come from all over the industry—people who write for shows like Abbott Elementary, Shadow And Bone, Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj, XO Kitty, Roswell, New Mexico—and from every level of the business, from staff writer to showrunner. “Fun fact, when we made the YJ pilot, Bart [Nickerson] and I made a 40K production fee, split between the two of us, minus commissions (25%) and taxes, for 8 months of work,” Yellowjackets co-creator Ashley Lyle tweeted, shocking even her star Melanie Lynskey. (“The main thing any of us have to go on when choosing a project is the quality of the script. It’s everything,” Lynskey herself tweeted in support of the WGA. “There is no industry without writers. They deserve to be able to make a living!”)
Some writers have used their social media to help the average viewer understand how the state of television writing has fallen below equitable standards. Ashley Nicole Black (A Black Lady Sketch Show) and Brittani Nichols (Abbott) posted explanations about the lack of residuals in the streaming era. CSI: Vegas staff writer Dave Metzger shared that his experience in one of the dreaded streaming “mini rooms” ultimately led to being so underpaid that he fell behind on paying his WGA dues; despite rising to the level of staff writer, he’s had to take jobs outside the industry or accept work beneath him on the ladder to stay afloat.
“There are a handful of writers who make huge amounts of money. But a lot of us are struggling to make ends meet, and increasingly need to work other jobs just to afford rent and groceries,” Metzger shares with The A.V. Club. “I know many incredible writers who have been forced out of the business simply because they couldn’t make rent anymore. And, anecdotally, writers of underrepresented identities are disproportionately affected by these changes.”
With a historically high turnout and an overwhelming majority of guild members voting to authorize the WGA strike, negotiations with AMPTP (the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) will continue through May 1, when the current WGA contract expires. If the two groups don’t reach an agreement, the strike will be on—and these writers are explaining just why they voted in favor of that outcome.
The state of television in the streaming era
The “Writers Strike for Dummies” explanation of the current state of TV can be boiled down to this: profits are high and budgets are up, but writers are making less than ever. According to the WGA, half of all TV series writers are working for the guild’s Minimum Basic Agreement rate, regardless of their level of experience in the industry. And that MBA hasn’t been adjusted for inflation.
Plus, despite the fact that there’s more television than ever, there’s somehow less work. That’s because of the rise of miniseries and short-episode seasons. Writers are only being paid for 8-10 episodes of work. “[It] becomes, instead of a career of writing, it becomes a series of short-term gigs where the money you get you have to stretch out, and stretch out, and stretch out to make it for an entire year,” O’Keefe says. “And writers are going months, years, between projects.”
Many writers have tweeted about the concept of “mini rooms,” which Workaholics alum Alex Blagg describes as a “relatively new [phenomenon] that came with the arrival of the Netflix model” and has become increasingly common in the streaming era. These rooms tend to employ fewer staffers than in the past for shorter periods, meaning less work (and less money) all around.
A “mini room” can also refer to writers’ rooms in which entire seasons of television are written before production—or, sometimes, before the show is even given a green light—providing a loophole for companies to pay even more experienced writers the MBA rate, according to O’Keefe. This formula also prevents young writers from getting the chance to be on set, which is a “huge generational problem,” Blagg explains to The A.V. Club, “as this is how younger writers were able to learn the ins and outs of production so they could become producers and showrunners themselves someday.” So the mini room model not only cuts writers out of the profits, it hinders their ability to climb up the ladder and experience greater career stability.
But there’s something else insidious about the mini room model. Because some mini room projects never make it to series, that means companies have a backlog of projects that could be moved into production. It’s a way for streamers to bypass the effects of a strike, O’Keefe warns, “because they understand how screwed up the industry is and they understand that the writers are pissed, they’ve been stockpiling scripts in order to prepare for a massive work stoppage.”
Why strike?
One takeaway from the writers’ messages, on Twitter and beyond, is that nobody wants to strike. “Beyond just writers, there are many thousands of hardworking craftspeople—set dressers, hair and makeup, carpenters, and many more—who will be put out of work if we end up striking,” Metzger acknowledges. But as O’Keefe argues, those workers, and workers across every facet of the industry, have also been cut out of profits. “It’s not the writers who will be grinding Hollywood to a halt,” he says. “It’s the studios. It’s the network. It’s the six corporations who own 90% of the media industry, have received record profits, and shared none of it with any workers across any part of their machine. It’s a systemic issue.”
“We are the creators of a product that brings in billions in profits—and yet we’re treated as disposable gig workers,” Blagg tells The A.V. Club. “For us, this negotiation isn’t just about getting a little bump in our pay—it’s about addressing the existential issues that have made our entire career unsustainable.”
What does this all mean for the folks watching at home? “[If] the studios win, they will make more money for their shareholders, and in exchange, the quality of the movies and TV shows you like will go down,” Metzger says. “If we win, it will protect or even enhance access to writing as a career, which means better-written [and] produced TV and movies for you to enjoy; and more access for writers of underrepresented identities, which means richer and more diverse TV and movies for all of us.”
Additional reporting by Drew Gillis.
69 Comments
Another day, another fight against the giant capitalists to try and claw back some of the colossal amount of wealth they’ve stolen from labor. Strike on.
I sympathize with the WGA, but let’s not forget poor Ted Sarandos, who if he were forced to pay writers a decent wage for their labor, wouldn’t be able to afford to pay Dave Chappelle another 20 million dollars for another 6 years worth of hour long transphobic rants.
Won’t someone think of the children!?!
“I’m your huckleberry!”
It’s weird to see how broken some peoples brains are. Sorry someone is getting paid without you being consulted first. Maybe consider that you don’t matter.
The strike could have been avoided by moving Hollywood halfway across the country and hiring non-union writers at discount salaries.
So in other words, Hollywood’s non-union Mexican equivalent?
I always thought a cool idea would be a pop culture website that exists outside the bubble of Los Angeles, maybe somewhere like Chicago or something.
Yeah! It could be a club, for those who are interested in the audiovisual arts. I think it should be called “The Pop Culture Gang.”
You’re right. Writing and producing multi-million dollar investments is a common skill that all cities have talent pools and infrastructure for!
It really looks like the only way for all of the workers to get a fair share of the profits would be for the different performers’ guilds to honor each others’ strikes. Stockpiling scripts would be useless if the actors and directors refused to cross the metaphorical picket line.
Yep. The more unions strike in solidarity, the better. Even if actors don’t, there’s still Teamsters, editors, cinematographers, art directors, costume designers, directors, etc. It just takes one, really.
I would not expect that to happen. For one thing, it never has before. For another, those unions have their own agreements with the studios that expire when they expire. It would not be legal for them to call a strike while working under a collectively bargained contract. The staggered expiration of these deals, and the ability to play the guilds against each other is very much part of studio labor strategy. There’s general sympathy among the unions (except between the WGA and the DGA; they revile and undercut each other) but very little practical solidarity.
Blech. Maybe we need to get a couple of the less-prominent unions (cinematographers? set decorators?) to get on the same schedule so that they can increase their collective power.
FYI, each department does not have its own union. There is the WGA, the DGA, SAG/AFTRA, the Teamsters (which reps drivers, locations, casting agents, and a few other trades), and IATSE (which reps grips, props, camera departments (I think), costumers, etc). That’s it. Last time the WGA struck, the then-IATSE president called it a clown show and explicitly opposed it. That’s about how it goes for cooperation.
Yikes. Ok, well, thanks for the info. A union president who shits on the efforts of other unions… oy.
The various guilds (other than the WGA) are clown shows. The DGA really really wants the studios to love them, so they talk a bunch of shit about the WGA every time there’s a strike, wait until it’s over, then go to the studios and say they want the same deal the writers got. Basically they depend on the writers to negotiate for them, while behaving as antagonistically as possible toward them throughout.SAG used to be strong-ish, until the AFTRA merger happened which let thousands and thousands of non-working actors in who will never go on strike, ever. Adding AFTRA completely broke SAG’s back, and now it’s a rubber-stamp agency.The IATSE goes back and forth. They have virtually no bargaining power, and will or will not back the WGA (whose negotiations set the pattern for everybody) based on who’s in charge. During the 2008 strike, the IATSE had a director who wasn’t a stooge and they supported the writers.
The Teamsters are strong will almost always support other unions, i.e. the WGA because none of the others ever make a peep.The root cause of all this is that everyone in Hollywood is terrified because there are a thousand of people who want in for every person who is in, and those thousand will accept any wage to get in. The dirty secret is that even though writers are far less famous than the actors or directors, they’re by far the least replaceable because they’re the ones who make it all up. The DGA hates them for that, but it’s part of what allows the WGA to strike effectively.*I am not a WGA writer*
Hold fast and best of luck, comrades!
On the issue of stockpiling scripts so they can work through a writers’ strike, the DGA contract will be up soon, and they’re waiting to go back to the table until after the WGA strike would begin.If the DGA strikes, that’s the ballgame. Absolutely no production can continue (at least in the states).
The politics of this is interesting. I guess ordinarily, it would slightly weaken both the DGA’s and the WGA’s bargaining position to strike at the same time, but do you think that if streamers tried to do something like this, they would authorize an early strike to prevent them from doing so?
The DGA and WGA don’t cooperate with each other in any way. No sharing of information, strategic alignment… nothing. The DGA is known for making deals with the studios while the WGA is on strike that then becomes a pattern that is more or less imposed on the WGA. Source: me, 20-year WGA member, 10 year DGA member and vet of the 07-08 strike.
The compensation issues are obviously huge and important and I wouldn’t want to undercut them *at all*. That said, I think there’s not enough conversation about the fuckery of mini rooms and how shorter seasons kill TV writers. I know that shorter seasons are often associated (usually correctly!) with an uptick in show quality but they mean less work for staffers. Less work, less job security in an already woefully insecure industry, and less of the exact kind of experience Mary Kate highlights in the article. None of these baby writers are getting to be on sets. They aren’t learning the rigors of long-term storytelling. They aren’t learning how to do proper research on ANYTHING. (Recall the complaints about the legal aspect of She-Hulk and the fact that it’s because their writing staff had no time to do research or experience with legal shows…)Separately, somewhat tangentially, it is a fucking *shame* that TV writing is not taught more and alongside “regular” screenwriting. I teach college film classes, including screenwriting. There are no TV writing classes here. Which is absurd as this school HAS a TV station. And there IS a TV production track. (It’s largely focused on news/sports/live event production.)
I feel like the correlation between season length and quality has deteriorated in the last several years. At this point, I’ve watched several shows that seemed worse because of how short they were- not enough time for character development, world building, rushed relationship development, etc. There was a time when that would have felt inconceivable. But now I often find myself passing over certain genres when the series is too short- mostly sitcoms and sci fi/fantasy. So many things aren’t given enough room to breathe and grow now it seems.
Totally fair counterpoint! And one that I agree with, actually. There’s probably a happy medium. I think the shorter episode run in American productions lead to higher initial quality because there was less desperation to drag a season out to 22 but the more European short season model we were borrowing was based on *good* Euro TV exports. So we (I’m American) looked at the Euro model and said, “Ooh, their output is better!”, not realizing that it was actually just that we were getting the better output. A little bit of “Correlation is not causation” problem.Anyway, I’m rambling…
I don’t know the labor aspects of it, but I did have a conversation with a Japanese woman that she preferred Japanese shows because they tend to be shorter with a tidier story. Not the long drawn out time fillers that other Asian countries or American shows had. This was excluding anime series.
I couldn’t agree more. This Peak TV bullshit has given us nothing more than six to eight mediocre to pretty good TV and a hellva lot less memorable to often great TV compared to the nineties and aughts. Beyond that, the economics is ridiculous and unsustainable. An entire series run now is barely equivalent to a season of “The Office,” “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” etc. which is where the real TV economy has always been.
“That said, I think there’s not enough conversation about the fuckery of mini rooms and how shorter seasons kill TV writers.”
Seems mini room model is working better than expected on a fiscal level.
If shows developed in mini rooms are winning awards in their first season, with half the writers and getting the views and ad revenue; shareholders then get their money, execs can cash out and the show can be cancelled. Rinse repeat, and art and fame be dammed.
Well sure, if you just want to be a fucking capitalist and not give a shit about the people who do the actual fucking work.It’s not sustainable. Those same execs will find that nobody wants to work on their shit anymore. And the ones who do will suck because nobody has taught them how NOT to suck.Like…. You’re not wrong about the short term financial gains. But I don’t give a shit about that argument. Go have that conversation with someone else.
I’m not saying it’s a good thing. I’m saying that was the plan all along.
Apologies. The blood is up.
Great…and why is that a good thing? EDIT: Nevermind see you replied again below that it isn’t. Just sick of capitilism. Corporate profit shouldn’t be the end goal.
Also, this is a huge error in sample bias– if you make 500 shows using mini-rooms, and 2 win awards, it doesn’t mean the model is working.
I kinda feel like these agreements were negotiated when the standard network show was still the baseline, and streamers have figured out how to exploit that by cutting their episode orders. It used to make sense to have compensation based on an episode count because networks were incentivized to try and get enough episodes of any given show to sell it for syndication. The importance of that has been exponentially reduced in the streaming era, but it feels to an outsider like a lot of the agreements are based on the assumption that a network will want as many episodes as possible of any successful show. That just doesn’t seem to be true for most of the streaming services, where the emphasis seems to be more on creating as many moderately successful shows as possible to build up their content libraries. So their money goes toward making three three-season shows, usually with a much small episode count, instead of one nine-season juggernaut. That shift in motivation coincidentally seems to be allowing them to exploit some weaknesses in the previous agreements.
I kinda feel like there should be some baseline for anything that constitutes a season of TV, defined as, say, six episodes or more, where the writer is guaranteed at least a couple of weeks of set access and a salary that they can live on that year. They’d still likely save enough on other production costs to disincentivize length for length’s sake, but there would also be less incentive to squeeze a production to its absolute bare bones to save on costs.
That is the problem. These were all negotiated back when “internet series” were essentially clips on Ebaumsworld. Now it’s the main dominant source of television series, and networks are absolutely loving it because they get to work with rules made for 2 minute long web-series that now also apply to major productions.
Twelve crappy seasons of Fawlty Towers would be an improvement?
British TV is a different animal. In no small part due to the public funding of the BBC and England’s education system.And honestly if it meant more work for more writers? Yes, twelve seasons is fine. I’m more interested in supporting labor than being precious about quality. Both would be nice but I’ll gladly take a slow decline in quality if it means fewer writers working two jobs to make ends meet.
As the consumer, I know my choice. I would be happy for them to get a larger share of royalties, but I am not going to watch that hypothetical 12-season crappy show.
And guess what? You don’t have to watch it. You never have ever been forced to watch anything.
Exactly. This is where I have to disagree;“I’ll gladly take a slow decline in quality if it means fewer writers working two jobs to make ends meet.”Sorry, my time is valuable to me; if there’s a decline in quality, I’d rather spend my free time doing something else entirely.
That’s fair, but also let’s be honest about the hyperbole.
I think you also have to look at how much any one streaming show outside of a few tentpole titles contributes to the profitability of a Netflix or Hulu. The amount of content they have to create is vast. I have no doubt they’re underpaying the off-screen talent but also think the current model is a god-awful mess.
From the great words of Ronald D. Moore, (def not Bragga)
“We’ve made too many compromises already; too many retreats. They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!”
This doesn’t work that great, because he’s immediately struck down by a normal person as being a proud idiot, and relents.
and then goes on to help defeat the Queen, prevent the ship from being destroyed, saves history, and goes back home to become an Admiral and (spoiler) dad!
Though let’s not forget how the quote was ALSO uttered by a Ferengi who comes across as INCREDIBLY foolish in the moment as he’s wanting to cling onto a way of life that’s being washed away in the name of social progress.
They need to pay TV writers more because they world has way to many podcasts these days
Wait but I need to make one with my friends because there aren’t enough white dudes talking about videogame podcasts
And, The AV Club used to employ writers, who got replaced by cheaper people with…
This needs more stars.
Hey, only 13 days until AVClub would have been forced to write an article about this and we finally get something. That’s progress, I suppose, even if it means that another slideshow and/or snark has been tragically delayed.Your readership has been asking about this for a while, and including parts of this analysis in many of the odder moves in shows not being picked up and contracts terminated/completed over the last few months would have been nice back then.Overall, though, I’m pleased to finally see a discussion of this even if it omits what’s going to be the single hardest issue to resolve, which is streaming residuals – something even pointed out in Alanna Bennett’s thread.This going to shut down the industry for a while.
Good on AVC. The first piece of semi-decent reporting in a while.
Maybe explain what those numbers are, AvClub.From https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/wga-schedule-of-minimums/For TV:Week-to-week, WGA staff writer minimum: $5,069/weekThis number goes down the more weeks of guaranteed work you have to a WGA minimum of $3,964/weekNetwork prime time bible: $60,828Under 30-min “network prime time” story & teleplay: $27,000Under 60-min “network prime time” story & teleplay: $39,858Under 30-min “other than network prime time” story & teleplay: $15,903Under 60-min “other than network prime time” story & teleplay: $28,907High budget basic cable 1-hr drama story & teleplay: $30,780—————————-
Here are some of the key numbers for the largest streamers in the WGA MBA minimums:20-35 min program with a budget between $1-$2.1 million: $15,90320-35 min program with a budget of $2.1 million or more: $27,10036-65 min program with a budget between $1.7 – $3.8 million: $28,90736-65 min program with a budget of $3.8 million or more: $39,85896+ min program with a budget between $3 – $4.5 million: $56,93296+ min program with a budget of $4.5 million or more: $73,784 (If non-episodic: $80,647)
Is that an explanation or just a listing?
It was simple context. How would a layman know what the Minimum Basic Agreement rate is? I should not have to Google it. It’s just words without number context.
And why would “a layman” need to know that? What does that context add to the conversation?
Oh, I don’t know. What would would knowing what a particular state’s actual hourly minimum wage is when discussing its minimum wage?
I’ll be blunt. I am extremely suspicious of your intentions. You want numbers but you’re not including anything about inflation or cost of living in Los Angeles, where the vast majority of TV writers are forced to live. You’re not including any context about career spans of the average TV writer. I think you’ve thrown those numbers up as a way of downplaying the financial state of these writers because those numbers are *obviously* not “a particular state’s actual hourly minimum wage”. I think that *some* “layman” types look at jobs in entertainment as overpaid easy labor. This is exactly the kind of bullshit conversation that happened on Kotaku when that Bayonetta voice actress complained. Unfortunately she turned out to be a total asshole in her personal life but there was an awful lot of “derp she’s not working on a fishing boat derp” bullshit at the time and I can see that potentially happening here, too.If I’m wrong, then I apologize for having that knee-jerk reaction.
I appreciate blunt. I tend to be very direct. No need to apologize. I can assure you, that I have zero skin in the writer’s game, Hollywood game, or any adjacent domain. I am of the school that money makes the world go ‘round. Get paid. That said, I am also of the school that nuAVClub needs to do a better job as a general rule. Which obviously at this point in its life, is never going to happen. But I will tilt at the windmill. Short version: yes, I was actually looking for context because I have zero idea what these minimum wages are, and feel that it would be helpful.
I think it’s only helpful if it’s accompanied by a conversation about where that money goes, how it compares to the profits made by the networks/streamers that benefit from the labor, the aforementioned cost of living, etc. Because I think there IS a risk, as demonstrated by the prior voice actor thread, that people who don’t know any better will look at those earnings as outsized and will thus not be supportive of whatever negotiations are being done. To be critical of my own knee-jerk paranoia, I haven’t seen anyone do that here YET, but my concern is that the minute you show the average person the numbers they will lose whatever sympathy is necessary for these kinds of negotiations to garner popular support. You are not wrong from the POV of journalistic thoroughness, I just would prefer that IF we’re gonna get into the nitty gritty of the actual numbers it be accompanied by a discussion of WHY the numbers are what they are. (And maybe that’s something that the AV Club could write an article about as well. I think that would be interesting!)
Yeah the issue is that while those numbers may look good raw, if you’re working on a 8-ep season in a room with 6 writers you may get ten weeks of employment and one teleplay a year. Maybe. Maybe you don’t even get the one if you’re low- or mid-level.Then consider that you’re on hold for the project, so you can’t go out and get other jobs.Now consider that these jobs are hard as hell to get, so you might go a year or two or ten between getting your next gig. And since shows are quickly canceled these days, you’re shopping for a new job virtually every year. Plus they can fire you at any point, and often do because shows tend to run cheap the first few years and then get expensive in seasons three or four.Now consider that you may have a writing partner, which studios prefer because they get to split your salary between the two of you.Now consider that the industry is impossible to get into, and you probably spent 5-10 years making 24k a year as an assistant or waiter just to get this gig. Which may very well be the only gig you ever get in your entire career.
100%.I still encourage my screenwriting students to try going the TV route. Features are even worse in several ways.
That was good context, thank you.
I’m in the WGA, I don’t see why it’s a bad thing to list the MBA minimums accurately as Zod has done here. The “reason” they are what they are is that those are the best numbers we could bargain for.I appreciate reading the support for and/or interest in our issues on here.
Thanks for the response. I wish you and the rest of your peers the best of luck in your negotiations!!
Holy shit what’s this?? AVC doing ACTUAL reporting about important issues??Maybe keep interviewing writers and getting their opinion out there, keep yelling at entertainment corps to share their profits, and when your own corporate overlords tell you to stop, KEEP ON DOING ITUNIONS FOR ALL
This is the first I’ve heard the term “mini-room.” I’ve heard a number of British TV creators talk about how foreign it is to them we even have writers rooms since it isn’t uncommon for programs there have only one or two writers (Fleabag, The Office/Extras, This Country, Gavin & Stacy, and so on…). Since capitalism is so adept at screwing over the rank and file, even if the WGA get a lot of concessions in this upcoming contract, I wonder if studios will just laugh and turn the “mini-room” into the “micro-room.”
As a writer, I took inspiration from the essay on cannibalism among human cultures and gerbils to create a horror story. The story revolves around a research scientist named Dr. Helen, who specializes in studying the behavior of rodents. One day, while working in her laboratory, she receives a shipment of gerbils from a remote desert region. These gerbils are known for their aggressive behavior and cannibalistic tendencies, and Dr. Helen is excited to study their behavior.However, as Dr. Helen begins her research, she starts noticing strange and disturbing patterns in the gerbils’ behavior. They seem to be much more aggressive than expected, attacking each other and even eating their own young. Dr. Helen becomes increasingly alarmed as she realizes that the gerbils’ behavior is not just due to their natural instincts, but something much more sinister.One night, while working late in the lab, Dr. Helen begins to hear strange noises coming from the gerbil cages. She approaches the cages and is horrified to see the gerbils attacking and eating each other, their eyes glowing with an otherworldly energy. Suddenly, the gerbils break out of their cages and begin attacking Dr. Helen.She tries to fight them off, but they are too strong and too numerous. In a desperate attempt to save herself, Dr. Helen injects herself with a serum that she had been developing, hoping it would grant her the strength and agility she needs to fight off the gerbils. But instead, the serum transforms her into a cannibalistic creature with a taste for flesh.Dr. Helen begins attacking and devouring her colleagues and anyone who gets in her way, her body mutating into a grotesque and monstrous form. She becomes a legend in the scientific community, known as the “Gerbil Cannibal”, and is feared by all who hear her story.In the end, Dr. Helen’s research and experiments had unleashed a terrifying and cannibalistic force upon the world, one that could not be contained or controlled. The story of the Gerbil Cannibal lives on as a warning of the dangers of playing with the natural order and the consequences of unleashing dark and dangerous forces.
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