Hollywood writers begin to strike, and night shows disappear

NEW YORK (AP) — Late-night television shows, including “The Tonight Show” and “The Daily Show,” will begin airing reruns Tuesday as unionized screenwriters strained by low wages in the era of streaming begin to air. strike for the first time in 15 years.

About 11,500 film and television writers represented by the Writers Guild of America have put down their pens and laptops after failing to reach a new contract with the trade union that represents Hollywood studios and production companies.

The labor dispute could have a cascading effect on TV and movie productions depending on how long the strike lasts, and it comes as streaming services come under increasing pressure from Wall Street to show profits.

Hollywood Strike writers’ picket lines begin in New York

Late night television was the first to feel the fallout, just as it was during the 2007 100-Day Writers’ Strike.

All the late-night shows staffed by writers writing monologues and jokes for their hosts were instantly gone. NBC’s The Tonight Show, Comedy Central’s Daily Show, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, CBS’s The Late Show, and NBC’s Late Night have all planned reruns during the week.

NBC did not immediately comment on plans for “Saturday Night Live.” The sketch show is set to air a new episode this Saturday, hosted by Pete Davidson.

“Everyone, myself included, I hope both sides come to an agreement. But I also think the writers’ demands are not unreasonable,” host Stephen Colbert said on “The Late Show” Monday.

“This nation owes a lot to unions,” Colbert said. “Unions are the reason for the weekends, and therefore why we have TGI Fridays.”

The impact of the strike on biblical series and films will take longer to notice; Those with scripts completed are allowed to continue shooting. During the 2007 strike, the late night hosts returned to the air and improvised their way through the shows.

One late night show that won’t get dark. Fox News’ “Gutfeld!” Fox said Tuesday with Greg Gutfeld will continue to air new episodes.

The writers’ union is seeking higher minimum wages, fewer staffed writing rooms, shorter exclusive contracts and reworked residual wages — all terms it says have diminished in the boom in paid-for, streaming content.

“Corporate behavior has created a labor-based economy within the unionized workforce,” the WGA said in a statement.

Picket lines are planned for Tuesday in Los Angeles and New York, including outside the Manhattan building where NBCUniversal is holding an event for advertisers for its streaming service, Peacock.

In Los Angeles, the writers plan to demonstrate outside the offices of The Walt Disney Company, Netflix, Amazon, Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount, CBS, and Sony.

The Motion Picture and Television Producers Alliance, which represents studios and production companies, said it made an offer with “generous increases in writers’ compensation as well as improvements to tailings flow.”

The trade association said in a statement that it was willing to improve its bid “but was unwilling to do so because of the volume of other proposals still on the table that the union continues to insist on.”

A large-scale shutdown was expected for several months. Last month, writers voted overwhelmingly to allow the strike, with 98% of the membership in support. Writers say their salaries are not keeping up with inflation, that TV writer’s rooms have shrunk too much and that the old calculations of how tailings are paid should be redrawn..

Broadcasting has increased the number of series and films being produced annually, which means more job opportunities for writers. But the writers say they earn less than they used to while working under more stressful conditions.

The union is seeking more compensation for the writers up front. This is because many of the batches whose writers have historically benefited from the back end—such as syndication and international licensing—were largely phased out with the onset of broadcasting.

More writers—about half of them—are getting paid minimum rates, an increase of 16% over the past decade.

The Hollywood Trade Association said on Monday that the main sticking points in the deal revolved around so-called small rooms — the union seeks a minimum number of clerks per writer’s room — and the duration of employment contracts.

The guild said more flexibility was needed for writers when they are contracted on series, which tend to be shorter-lived than a standard 20-plus episode broadcast season.

Many studios and production companies are cutting spending. The Walt Disney Company cut 7,000 jobs. Warner Bros. Discovery is cutting costs to reduce its debt. Netflix has injected breaks into spending growth.

Movies will take longer to be affected, and if the strike continues through the summer, TV schedules could flip in the fall. Meanwhile, the lack of writers available for rewriting can have a significant impact on quality.

The James Bond movie “Quantum of Solace” was one of several films made quickly during the 2007-2008 strike with what Daniel Craig called the “bare bones of the script.”

“I was trying to rewrite the scenes – and I’m a writer, not a writer,” Craig later recounted.

With a pullout long anticipated, writers scrambled to get the scripts out and studios sought to prepare their pipelines to continue producing content for at least the short term.

Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav said. Discovery, last month: “We assume the worst from a business perspective.” “We have prepared ourselves. We have a lot of content produced.”

A series abroad could fill some of the void. “We have a huge base of shows and movies coming in from around the world,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said on the company’s April earnings call.

However, the WGA strike may only be the beginning. The contracts of both the Directors Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, expire in June. Some of the same issues around the streaming business model will factor into these bargaining sessions. DGA set to begin negotiations with AMPTP on May 10 ___

Associated Press writer David Boder in New York contributed to this report.

Follow AP Film writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP