West saw their earnings grow 4.2% to $1.56 billion last year thanks to gains in feature films and television.
The WGA West report also reassured members that the guild — which is embroiled in a bitter legal battle with top Hollywood talent agencies — is on solid financial footing. The earnings figures in the report will become fodder for the guild’s battle with talent agencies as the WGA asserts that conflicts of interest in dealmaking for TV series have depressed the salaries of many writers in recent years — a contention strongly disputed by agencies.
The stats in the report — which was mailed to members late last week — underscore the generally healthy state of show business economics. Negotiators stressed that point repeatedly during 2017’s contentious negotiations with production companies, which saw a 96% strike authorization and a three-year deal that was concluded an hour before the previous contract expired on May 1, 2017. The current master contract expires in 10 months on May 1.
Hollywood screenwriters’ earnings surged 7.3% last year to $481 million, and the number of writers reporting earnings rose 3.9% to 1,940. TV and digital platform writers’ earnings gained 3% to $1.07 billion, and the number of writers working declined by 1.5% to 4,830. The guild has noted that the actual numbers for TV writers’ compensation are not reflected in its figures because it does not include overscale income, which is a big source of the conflict between the guild and talent agencies.