The strike by the Writers Union of the United States continues its course and since last Tuesday the streets of New York and Los Angeles, the main centers of television and cinema, have been filled with pickets to express their demands. And among them we find to some of the most interesting creators of the current television scene.
It has been the case Danny Strong, creator of one of the best miniseries in recent years: ‘Dopesick’, which we can see on Disney+. speaking for Varietythe screenwriter and producer has summarized the main reasons for going on strike and points to the main players in the current industry: streaming platforms, their work model and their opacity when giving figures.
In Strong’s words:
“The entire media landscape has been brutally changed by streaming. We should have dealt with these issues three years ago but due to the pandemic the writers agreed not to do so out of courtesy. And in those three years streaming has only taken a bigger share of the market while other ancillary distribution services have gotten smaller and smaller, so the topic has turned to an even more important one for writers: getting a fairer share of streaming. .”
An opaque streaming
It is a verifiable thing How has the “writers room” model changed?: fewer people, fewer episodes and less money to carry out the script of complete series. Something that makes it increasingly difficult for a screenwriter to dedicate himself to it.
And it is that the panorama of streaming and the “mass” production of series and films has caused a degradation of the conditions for scriptwriters, with a new work model (mini scriptwriters rooms, few episodes per project, etc.) that makes their survival in the environment increasingly difficult.
Something that is added to an issue that has been criticized for a long time both by the media and by members of the industry: the lack of transparency (and audit) on the metrics of a streaming series or movie complicates things:
«How do you reach a fair agreement if it is not known, if you do not have data about what your series does? How many people do we make, how much profit comes in and all of that is trading in a bubble, up to a point. It’s unfair and to be honest I don’t even think it should be legal. It’s basic transparency. Businesses need to be transparent about their benefits across different services. It doesn’t make any sense.”
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