If you’ve tuned into TV at all in recent months, you may have noticed that most shows sounded rather familiar. Hollywood has been running reruns for five months while writers and actors picketed outside of major studio headquarters. This week, those picket lines may be getting shorter.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) announced Sunday that it had reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers over the weekend, boasting that most of its demands had been met. The agreement hasn’t been made public as of yet and still needs to be ratified by the union’s more than 11,500 members, but given the union’s high praise, it seems likely writers are back in business. (READ MORE: The Hollywood Strike Might Blow Down the Whole House of Cards)
Hollywood isn’t quite done with picket lines yet. The WGA has told its members not to go back to work until the agreement is finalized, and SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, is still busy negotiating its demands for studios.
But while the strike certainly cost something — California’s economy lost $3 billion in the first 100 days — it was hardly as impactful as one might expect. Instead, the last five months leave us with at least a few lessons that Hollywood would do well to take to heart.
Something like 123.8 million American homes have televisions, which works out to just about 94 percent of American households. With statistics like that, you might conclude that more Americans are watching television than ever. You’d be wrong.
The number of Americans who actually pay for a TV service like cable has dropped drastically. It now comes out to 66 percent of Americans, according to Statista, which is a 22-point drop since 2010. That means that “popular” TV shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live! are hardly getting the viewership that kind of show once did.
Kimmel’s ratings are consistently between 1 and 2 million. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno had an average viewership of over 3 million in the 1990s. His replacement was Jimmy Fallon, who, like Kimmel, is averaging somewhere between 1 and 2 million.
What’s incredible is that, despite Kimmel and Fallon’s shows being forced into reruns for the last five months, their viewership hasn’t been affected — which suggests that they reached rock bottom a long time ago. In comparison, Ben Shapiro’s podcast has an average of 5 million listeners per episode.
That’s a theme reflected across the industry, not just in talk shows. Take the box office. Major films this summer didn’t break even, but Sound of Freedom, released by an independent studio, did fantastically well. (READ MORE: Sound of Freedom — Ringing Ticket Sales)
Not too long ago, Americans turned to their cable subscriptions to find out what was going on in the world and what to think about it. Hollywood studios and major news corporations effectively filtered the news. Now they don’t.
One of the major problems studios face in the modern age is streaming services. On the one hand, they are incredibly popular — 78 percent of Americans have a subscription to at least one streaming platform — but, on the other hand, studios are hemorrhaging money. Disney+ lost $460 million between April 1 and June 31 of this year.
As a result, producers are paying writers less, but writers aren’t happy receiving less for their services. So, some of the WGA’s demands included raising the pay floor, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
That might be fine if studios had infinitely deep wallets or could make money elsewhere, but instead, they’re raising the price for consumers. What used to cost $73 per month now costs an average of $87. At some point, consumers whose wallets are being pinched elsewhere will stop paying for streaming as well — at which point writers will be out of a job.
Hollywood isn’t exactly known for its blossoming creativity in recent years. Instead, it’s become stagnated on remakes of Disney princess classics and endless Star Wars and Marvel rehashes. While artificial intelligence is not yet ready to write a full-on script, that doesn’t mean it won’t be — especially if the script in question is just episode four of the millionth Marvel show.
And writers have been understandably concerned. In May, writer Lanett Tachel told NPR: “We’re out here fighting so that the Alexas and whatnot aren’t writing our stories. We’re not here to rewrite a machine…. We’re not against the use, you know, if we can find a way to be reasonable. But they cannot be the genesis of any creation. We create these worlds.” (READ MORE: People Are Working on Using AI to Steal From You)
That would be a fair argument if writers in Hollywood created original stories. The new agreement will allegedly regulate studios’ use of AI, but it’s only a temporary solution to the real problem. Writers will eventually have to compete with AI for a job.
The good news is that AI is incapable of true creativity, so winning the competition will simply require actual thought and work — something Hollywood hasn’t wanted to put into its films in a long time.
Hollywood has experienced a fundamental shift, and the WGA isn’t ready to face it. As with every seismic shift in culture, this one opens doors for independent studios willing to experiment and put in the creative effort.
Hollywood has just been too busy becoming Hollywoke to notice.
