An update on the Hollywood writer’s strike

Late Tuesday night, AMPTP, the alliance representing Hollywood’s studios, broke a mutually agreed-upon media blackout and publicly released the details of an offer it has provided to the ~11,500 striking writers represented by the Writers Guild of America.

The offer includes:

• A combined 13% pay hike over the course of the three-year deal, the highest increase for the WGA in 35 years, per the studios.
• An increase in data transparency; viewership reports would be shared with writers quarterly.
• A stipulation that writers will not be “disadvantaged” if AI is used to write any part of a script.
• A guaranteed minimum employment rate in development rooms, as well as an increase in total residuals from $72,067 to $87,546 per episode.

Per the WGA, which has now been on strike 115 days (its third-longest work stoppage in history), AMPTP’s public release of the offer was an effort “not to bargain, but to jam us.”

Though when it comes to the deal’s merits, the offer "substantially improves" on anything that came before, according to the WGA. But the union points to "limitations and loopholes and omissions" that fail "to sufficiently protect writers from the existential threats that caused us to strike in the first place" as its reason for rebuking the offer.

📉 Zoom out: In addition to creating an about-to-be-realized scarcity of new content (actors are still on strike too), the ongoing Hollywood strikes have already cost California’s economy an estimated $3+ billion.