The tipping point has finally arrived. After years of heady growth, heightened demands and unpredictable development and production schedules, seasoned TV writers are feeling the burn and yearning for the structure of simpler times, before streaming changed everything. As striking Writers Guild of America members gather daily on picket lines in Los Angeles and New York, the realization of how much has been lost amid the unprecedented spike in episodic production has come into sharp focus.
“Old media is in the worst position, including Disney,” the agent says. “Netflix, in the way that they’ve gobbled up local production and gotten global hit shows out of it — that can sustain them forever with the WGA sitting out. With Apple and Amazon, they’re not content companies. One makes phones and computers, and the other brings your groceries, and that’s always going to be their bread and butter.
In 2022, mainstream TV networks and platforms delivered a record high of 599 total English-language adult scripted TV series, according to the annual industry benchmark compiled by FX Networks. That compares with 182 in 2002, the year FX announced its arrival as a major player with the police drama “The Shield.
Hollywood’s old guard has been forced to make draconian cuts in the turbulent post-pandemic era, punctuated by Disney’s pink-slipping of 7,000 staff positions. Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount have also made deep cuts. And they’re all yanking shows right and left from cable and streaming platforms to save money on basic residuals and music licensing costs.
For decades, pilot development episodic television was done assembly-line fashion on a steadily predictable schedule. The cap gun would go off in January, when each of the major networks would select two dozen or so scripts to greenlight to pilot production. Back then, industry insiders would grouse about the rushed pace of producing make-or-break series pilots in a three-month period in advance of the May upfronts.