Three WGA Strike Options

[PGage]

From Puck News’s Matt Belloni on the pending WGA Strike:

Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers joined a Zoom meeting with WGA leaders last week and…

“agreed that their shows will go dark if, and when, there is a WGA strike, which could happen as early as midnight Tuesday…I’m told the hosts are all planning to pay their crews during a shutdown, similar to what Leno, Letterman, and Kimmel did back in 2007.  

At this point, a strike seems pretty inevitable, despite what your buddy’s girlfriend’s agent might have heard about a “breakthrough.” The writers are committed to double-digit gains, and the studios, for the most part, wouldn’t hate a few months to get their balance sheets in order. Pretty simple. But WGA lead negotiator Ellen Stutzman and AMPTP veteran Carol Lombardini have kept a strong muzzle on the negotiators. This isn’t like 2007-08; the standoff isn’t playing out in the media, and outlets claiming to know what’s going on “in the room” are kinda looking stupid.  

If there is a strike, here are three different scenarios for how it could play out, based on conversations I’ve had this week with labor veterans:

1. The July Scenario: If both the DGA and SAG-AFTRA make deals at the end of June, the writers will find themselves on a lonely island and will likely settle.
2. The September Scenario: The fall broadcast schedule is impacted, the movie pipeline begins to suffer, the Emmys are threatened, and the companies feel they have made their cost cuts over the summer and can justify giving a little to make a deal.
3. The December Scenario: Everyone, including the streamers, begins to run out of scripted programs, the substitutes and unscripted fare aren’t generating equivalent viewership, and people start canceling subscriptions. Both sides panic, get together, and make a deal.

Will it be 1, 2, 3 or something worse?”

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