Moody’s Investors Service estimates that the new contract with writers and actors that ended their long strikes will cost the studios close to $600 million annually — on the high end of its earlier estimate of $450 million to $600 million. Absorbing those new costs doesn’t worry Moody’s when it comes to media-company credit ratings, because they are a relative drop in the bucket to the TV and film entertainment business, which generates more than $100 million yearly.
Moody’s Investors Service is expecting the strike by the Writers Guild and the actors unions to last a relatively long time and result in incremental costs of between $450 million and $600 million to media companies when it is settled. The strike will have the most immediate impact on the movie theater companies, Moody’s said in a report Monday, but next on the chopping block are the media companies making the transition to streaming from broadcast television and pay-TV channels, Moody’s said.
