Consider This from NPR - Trouble In Hollywood As Writers Continue To Strike For A Better Contract

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

Union writers in Hollywood have put down their pens and reached for picket signs, after the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers failed to reach an agreement on a new contract.Some television shows and movies with finished scripts can continue filming, but other productions, like late-night talk shows, may soon be in reruns.NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with TV writer and WGA captain Jeane Phan Wong about what union members want and what's getting in the way.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. No writers, no TV! No writers, no TV! No writers, no TV! The contract between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers ended on Monday. The two sides failed to agree on a new three-year contract. On Tuesday began the strike. Shut it down! Hollywood's a union town! On strike! Shut it down! Union members have been picketing in Los Angeles and New York City.

Outside studios including Universal, Netflix, and Paramount Pictures. Hey! Hey! Go vote! This corporate freedom has no name! Go vote! This corporate freedom has no name! You say power! You say power, union! Power! Power! You say union, you say power, union! Power! Power! Studios are trying to pay us as little as possible for the least amount of time as possible. And we're here to say that's not how we make the movies and the television that, you know, that audiences watch, that they sell and that they make billions of dollars off of.

Like many other screenwriters, Sanchez-Witzel wants better pay, an amount they can actually live off. Brittany Nichols writes for the ABC show Abbott Elementary. You're getting checks for $3, $7, $10. It's not enough to put together any sort of consistent lifestyle. She told NPR she used to get half of her original writing fee each time networks re-aired an episode she wrote. But now, when her episodes are sold to streamers, she's only getting 5.5%. It can really be a real shock because, you know, we get our residuals in these green envelopes. You get a green envelope, you're like, all right, here we go. Hopefully something good's in here. And then sometimes you just get a stack of checks for seven cents. You heard right, seven cents.

Now, if you're wondering how all this will affect the programs you love, you probably won't see much of an immediate effect on shows with scripts that are already written. So all you fans of House of the Dragon and other shows that are filming from existing scripts, you can relax for a while. But soap operas might need to go on hiatus. And as for late night TV... From Hollywood, it's Jimmy Kimmel Live! Welcome, welcome, welcome to The Tonight Show! You are here! And that's a joke for old people. They've created something called the Colbert Questionnaire. Late night fans will feel the effect pretty quickly.

The shows will rely on reruns, or hosts will be on their own to improvise their comedy bits. Hosts like Stephen Colbert have spoken out in support of the WGA's demands. These are our writers. These people, these are our writers, and I'll stick myself in there because I'm WGA too, and they're so important to our show. They write the monologue, the meanwhile, the cold open, and without these people, without these people, this show would be called The Late Show with a guy rambling about the Lord of the Rings and boats for an hour. But I also think that the writers' demands are not unreasonable.

It's been 15 years since the last WGA strike, which lasted 100 days. So consider this. The media landscape has changed dramatically since 2007, and some of those changes are fueling the WGA's current demands. Coming up, we'll talk with a TV writer and WGA member about what writers want and what's getting in the way. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. It's Wednesday, May 3rd. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today, or visit WISE.com.

T's and C's apply. Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org. It's Consider This from NPR. It is only day two of the WGA strike, but the union has said they'll stay out as long as necessary until they can negotiate an acceptable contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. I spoke with one of the writers caught up in the stalemate, Jeannie Phan Wong. She is a Writers Guild of America captain and co-chair of the WGA Women's

Committee. I asked what it's been like so far on the picket lines. I think everyone is really stressed out because the writers just feel like very reluctant to be there because we know how detrimental a strike is to the whole community and like to the whole town. And overall, there's just like an air of solidarity. We feel like we were forced in this situation by the studios. Yeah. But we're just there trying to get a fair contract for ourselves. And that's exactly what it comes down to. I mean, just tell me in a few sentences, if you can, what you believe is at stake here? I believe what is at stake here, in simplest terms, is the existence of writing as a profession.

And something I want to point out is that writers are not asking for a steady paycheck, because that's just outlandish and unreasonable in Hollywood. What we're asking for is, let's say you've worked four really good years and let's say year five is really bad, but those four really good years you've saved to pay for year five. And it's like, if it's really bad in year five, yes, maybe you get another job or a side hustle. But right now, every year is bad. And from top to bottom, and it's especially so for those who are breaking into the profession, it's come to the point where you have to, if you want to become a writer, you have to do this job and just have another job. What's at stake is the existential threat of writing as a profession.

Like whether you can make a living as a writer and not have to have a side gig. Yeah, and it's going to become like a day laborer job. And, you know, I think all jobs are going to be affected by that, you know, and, you know, the labor movement. And I think they're all sort of connected somehow. Talk to me about, I mean,, you know, and, you know, the labor movement. And I think they're all sort of connected somehow. Talk to me about, I mean, for you personally, what's the impact? Like, what projects are you currently working on? Or were you currently working on? And how does the strike affect them?

I was in the middle of writing a movie. And obviously, I had to stop writing that movie. And I 100% am at risk of losing my health insurance next year. I promise I'm not going to cry. But I also just sort of feel like if this doesn't happen, like if we don't get everything that makes living an actual career, and I'm a very realistic person, I will have to give up this dream because I have to survive. Yeah. If I may ask, what's the impact on your income, just like your take home pay right now? No income. I have no income. I'm living off of savings right now. So the strike that is unfolding now, as you well know, is going to impact a whole lot of people who aren't writers. I mean, the last time that WGA writers went on strike back in 2007,

2008, it cost the city of Los Angeles more than $2 billion, according to some estimates I've seen. It cost the industry. It cost all kinds of individuals who work in TV or in the movies who are not writers. How are you thinking about that, the cost of a writer's strike to people who aren't writers? The best way I can say is that there are plans being made

to address this, and that we are thinking about it. I mean, I think that's why when we're on the picket line, we're like really reluctant. We don't want to be there. We were forced to be there. And I think by me telling you the way that the negotiations were going, it didn't feel like there was a meaningful discussion and I think there's a historical larger context to look at is that these studios have a divide and conquer process it's about causing chaos and the writers guild is going to be to blame and yes there is some nuance yes the writers vote to go on strike, but we don't want to.

But the studios are forcing it. Now, the studios, if there were a studio exec sitting with us right now, they might argue, look, a lot of streaming services don't make a profit. That's who you're writing for. Revenue from advertising has tanked. Nobody argues over that point. The studios are arguing the pay structure for writers has got to change because your whole industry is changing. To which you say what? So I would say there are two things. There's overall profits and increasing profits. These companies are, you know, publicly traded. They're SEC. Every quarter they have to show an increase in profits in order to, you know, show growth

because they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders and their board. But right now, like if you look at the investor relations at each of these company websites, SEC data, they are always profitable. So whether they have increased profits due to investment in streamings or changing models or switching from network to streaming is a different issue. So I just want to refute the fact that they are poor. They're always profitable, but they are not increasing profits in all time because of the way they may conduct business, which has nothing to do with writers. And basically, writers are just asking 2% of the writer content, film and TV, whenever they make money off of that, we just want less than 2%. Anytime they have money, they make money off of us, we get money, we won't get paid,

unless they don't get paid. We're relying on them. And so I just want to make clear, there's this whole misconception, they have always been profitable. But they are cutting costs across the industry. I mean, I've seen Warner Brothers is cutting jobs, Disney is cutting jobs, Netflix, losing subscribers. That's all real. That is all real. And I'm not denying that. And what I'm saying is that the writers just merely want to have an agreement in place. You know, inflation's high, economies are cyclical, and you know, there are downturns and upturns, but we want an agreement in place when there's an upturn again. It's as simple as that. The last big strike, the 2007-2008 strike, you were a production

assistant and intern, is that right? Like at the beginning of your career? Yes. Yeah. So you're at such a different point now. What feels the same? What feels different this time? I didn't really understand, to be honest, what was going on in 2007. I just knew it was happening. And I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in the business and whatnot. And I sort of knew I wanted to be a writer. And I don't think I had a perspective what the strike was back then. But I think now looking back at it, I think the strike back then was about the Internet, which is what streaming is right now. And we were told back then that they don't know if streaming is going to be a big thing, the internet is a new thing.

Well, guess what? It was a new thing. It was a big thing. And now they're telling us, oh, we don't have money, we're laying people off. The reason why I'm saying this fight is not just about writers is because even our friends and execs at the studios are worried for their jobs and middle management. Where might this go? I'm thinking of the last big strike and that it ran more than 100 days, right?

Like three months. Are you prepared for that? We're prepared for that. I mean, I think everyone is prepared for that because this is really an existential threat. This is really about like, can people have a career or a job? And so I think everyone's really prepared because the stakes are really high. We've been speaking with writer and WGA captain Jeannie Fan Wong. Jeannie, thank you. Thank you so much. In a statement sent to NPR before the announcement of the strike, AMPTP said it had presented a package proposal to the Guild,

which included generous increases in compensation for writers, as well as improvements in streaming residuals. According to that statement, the Studios Alliance told the WGA it was prepared to improve that offer, but was unwilling to do so because of the magnitude of other proposals still on the table that the Guild continues to insist upon. You also heard reporting in this episode from NPR's Mandelleev Delbarco. It's Consider This. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation,

providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Thank you.