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In this issue
Results: Will the Writers Guild of America (WGA) vote to end its strike before September 30?
Reader average: 49%
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Three endings to the writers strike
There is no consensus among Nonrival readers as to when the writers strike will end. The average forecast is 49%, and as you can see from the chart below, readers' predictions are split pretty evenly between likely and unlikely.
But looking at the rationales many of you offered, there seem to be three camps—not two. Call them Early Fall, Late Fall, and Who Knows. Here are some of the rationales readers gave for their forecasts (which are in bold):
Early fall
70%: With the proposal out there seeming to at least address all demands and the pressure both sides are feeling I think it more likely than not to get resolved by the end of September.
70%: If there are corporate incentives (like October calls) for this to happen on the studio side, it will probably happen.
Late fall
30%: There are certain seasonal deadlines that the writers and the studios are looking at that fall closer to Halloween/November when more serious damage will be done to inventory for studios. This strike will continue until the date at which it really starts hurting both sides in terms of security for writers and inventory for studios. I expect it to drag until the mid fall.
Who knows?
A few readers suggested that there may not be any imminent deal, and that the strike is more existential:
30%: I think this strike is about dignity--a living wage, protection against AI--and about addressing the vast inequities between shareholders and C-suite execs. As long as the studios treat writers and actors like dirt under their shoes, the strike will continue.
10%: [The writers] are prepared for a long-term outage. They have strong and high-profile support and this really is a tipping point. If they don't establish a future-facing position now, the game changes irrevocably.
But can any deal provide the sort of long-term, existential assurances that writers desire? On that front, I go back to a paragraph from the economist Joshua Gans from July:
Let’s suppose that the striking writers and actors get what they want. From an economics perspective, yes, things may evolve a little slower but evolve, they will. If writers prohibit the use of AI in Hollywood production, then production will move out of Hollywood and will be rebuilt from the ground up with fewer writers per project. If actors require signoffs for the use of their likenesses, then Hollywood won’t use their likenesses. For background actors, they can just use AI right from the start. For others, they might start with AI right at the start. This happened with music performances in Japan. In other words, the demands the writers and actors have do not seem at all to guarantee them what they really want — a career. And my point is that I am not sure anyone can.
Trivia
During the last writers strike, in 2007, one Fox executive told analysts that it was “probably a positive” for the network because Fox aired which unscripted show that topped Nielsen’s TV ratings that year?
54% of you answered correctly: American Idol was the ratings giant that Fox claimed allowed it to benefit from the strike. Are there shows (or games or reruns) that similarly insulate the streaming platforms today?