How Networks and Streamers Are Prepping for a Potential Writers Strike
As the Writers Guild of America and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers continue negotiating over a new contract, the prospect of a labor strike — the first for writers in 15 years — looms large.
The guild has a wide-ranging set of priorities for the negotiations, ranging from higher minimum pay and expanded span protection for writers who are bound to a shorter-run TV series for long periods, to “addressing the abuses of mini-rooms” and regulating the use of material produced using artificial intelligence programs.
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The WGA’s contract is up May 1, and unless a deal is reached writers could walk out soon after. Even before the two sides started negotiating, however, TV networks and streamers began taking steps to ensure the content pipeline won’t run dry — at least for a while — in the event of a strike. Here are some of the ways they’re preparing for a potential strike.
Early Renewals and Ongoing Writers Rooms
The May 1 deadline for the WGA’s contract comes at the tail end of the 2022-23 TV season, when just about every primetime network show will be finished with production and at most a few weeks from its season finale. Streaming services likewise have a number of shows already wrapped and ready to go for several months after the contract deadline. Late-night shows could go dark quickly, however, with Saturday Night Live’s writers not penning sketches and talk shows like The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and Late Night With Seth Meyers missing both the staffs who write their jokes and, likely, a host of guests in other industry unions who wouldn’t cross picket lines.
The real effects of any prolonged labor action — the 2007-08 strike lasted 100 days — would likely show up more in the fall, when dozens of shows begin new seasons. As a hedge against a long walkout, broadcast networks have handed out more early renewals than in a typical year: CBS has already picked up most of its primetime slate, and Fox has renewed three dramas (Accused, Alert and The Cleaning Lady) and much of its animation lineup (see below). The early pickups can in turn keep writers rooms open and banking scripts for those shows’ next seasons, which would allow production to pick up quickly once a strike ends (assuming that the Directors Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, whose contracts are up at the end of June, don’t also strike). And yes, while early renewals should be taken as a vote of confidence — Quinta Brunson’s breakout Abbott Elementary was picked up in January — not all will continue straight through the typical summer hiatus period. NBC’s first renewal this season was for rookie Quantum Leap, a surprise considering pickups for all six Dick Wolf shows have yet to come. NBCUniversal’s Susan Rovner acknowledged the big Leap was in fact because of a possible work stoppage. “That’s because we can stay in continuous production right now ahead of a possible writers strike. That’s also a shorter order,” she told TV’s Top 5. “Dick Wolf does 22-episode shows, so there isn’t the same continuous production opportunity there.”
Unscripted Stockpiling
Unscripted shows, which aren’t covered by the WGA agreement, carried TV outlets through much of the last strike and would likely take on a similar role this time around. Summer is already prime territory for unscripted series, but there could be some changes afoot as programmers set their summer slates. Already, CBS opted to end the first season of its game show Lingo after eight episodes, instead of the 12 it ordered. The remaining four will be added to the show’s second season in 2023-24, giving the network that many more hours to use as it needs.
ABC, the first broadcaster to announce summer premiere dates, has a game show-heavy lineup per usual, but held back on setting a date for its mini-golf competition Holey Moley and Bachelor in Paradise. The latter aired in the fall of 2022, and both could be in play for the fourth quarter of this year should a strike drag on. And in the event of a long work stoppage, viewers can likely expect a wave of documentaries and docuseries — already a pillar of most streaming platforms — on streamers as scripted production falls off.
Broadcasters will also still have fall unscripted staples like Survivor (CBS), The Voice (NBC) and The Masked Singer (Fox) to serve as schedule anchors regardless of a strike.
Pushing Originals
Streamers and broadcast networks have also used lessons from the pandemic-related production stoppage in prepping for possible labor strife. Fox, for example, singled out production-related challenges because of COVID-19 for its decision to push rookie Monarch to September 2022 rather than launching it in January of that year. The network recently pushed Dan Harmon’s animated comedy Krapopolis to the 2023-24 broadcast season, giving Fox a full season to use as a potential filler. NBC did the same with the Greg Berlanti-produced drama Found, which Rovner has high hopes for based on its creative. Streamers, too, are doing the same: Apple TV+, for example, recently moved the second season of breakout comedy The Afterparty from a late April debut to July, which, while it may have something to do with the Emmy window, definitely doesn’t hurt them to have popular originals at a time when others may not.
Bulking Up on Animation
Fox, which purchased Bob’s Burgers animation house Bento Box a few years ago, has continued to bulk up on animated originals as the genre, in success, can be a cash cow. (See Rick and Morty, Family Guy merchandising.) As production on animated shows takes considerably longer, Fox and a number of streamers have been rapidly investing in the space. With the long lead time, it’s fair to expect a number of animated shows to help prop up Fox’s schedule should a strike impact live-action originals at the network and elsewhere. While animation does take longer to produce, scripts are done far in advance and the overall costs associated with them is far cheaper than live-action originals. Given entertainment companies’ larger mandates to cut costs — CBS’ Blue Bloods is reducing actor and producer pay by an estimated 25 percent, sources say — the price tag on animation and lucrative merchandising opportunities makes animation a safer and cheaper bet.
Acquired Content
Remember during the early days of the pandemic how Fox aired the former Spectrum original drama L.A.’s Finest? Expect more of that — only it’ll likely now come from within networks’ own walled gardens. Freeform announced that it would air Hulu original How I Met Your Father starting in April and continuing into the end of May. HBO originals True Blood and Silicon Valley started airing on TBS in February as Warner Bros. Discovery experimented with using library content to keep viewers tuned into its fading cable networks that no longer have any U.S.-produced originals in the works. Such a trend is not only cheaper to program but it also effectively serves as a free promotional tool to get new subscribers to HBO Max. If this trend sounds familiar, it should: During the 2007-08 WGA strike, CBS aired edited episodes of Showtime’s Dexter.
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