The network, which previously announced its fall lineup back in May, is now revealing an almost entirely new fall schedule amid ongoing programming disruptions throughout the TV industry from the SAG and WGA strikes. The CW and Fox also recently announced updated schedules for fall. The new CBS fall lineup leans in even more on unscripted programming as well as a mix of acquired scripted programming and expanded versions of reality shows, news and primetime sports.
As the SAG and WGA strikes wage on, the AMPTP faces a season without its biggest creatives to promote upcoming content. That leaves the fall season looking very… different.
The 2023 Emmy Awards are officially moving off their usual September airdate as actors and writers continue their strikes against media conglomerates. The 75th annual awards had been scheduled to air Sept. 18 on Fox. A new date has yet to be set, but sources close to the show confirm that the original date and month are no longer in consideration.
So far, neither studio executives nor actors and writers have shown formal interest in bringing Newsom to the negotiating table, said Anthony York, Newsom’s senior adviser for communications. But York said both Newsom and senior members of his administration have been in touch with all sides as the two strikes stretch deeper into the summer blockbuster season.
As the strikes grind on, actors and writers are worried about technology encroaching on their jobs.
Damning want ad surfaces just days after Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos pledges his commitment to end talent union strikes.
Exclusives
With talent unable to do press and content pipelines at risk of running dry, executives at every major streamer are quietly debating the pros and cons of holding back completed series.
Despite not being in the actors’ union, many content creators are passing up deals to promote films or TV shows because they don’t want to be barred from the guild or face online vitriol.
The ABC daytime soap is now employing temporary writers — that is, writers who have agreed to work despite the strike — to pen upcoming episodes. Sources say that so-called “fi-core” writers (or “financial core,” meaning they have rescinded their guild membership to pursue work) were brought on last week to start generating scripts in anticipation of the pre-strike stockpile running out.
Several of last season’s biggest moneymakers say they won’t cross picket lines for the annual event.
In the fall, TV viewers across the U.S. will see fewer new scripted shows like ABC’s Abbott Elementary, a trend that could continue well into next year if the walkouts continue.
The last big strikes reshaped the movie business and fueled the rise of reality TV. The latest walkout likely will help turn established actors into TikTok stars — and vice versa.
For a week, actors including household names like Tina Fey, Kevin Bacon and wife Kyra Sedgwick, Rosario Dawson, David Duchovny, Sarah Silverman (pictured) and other stars have joined working class performers and writers on picket lines outside studios and corporate offices of streaming giants Amazon, MAX and Netflix. There’s no indication when negotiations with studios and streaming companies, which are represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, will resume. The group has said they’ve offered both writers and actors substantial pay increases and have tried to meet other demands.
The writers say Hollywood studios are increasingly limiting their roles in television productions, highlighting a trend for white-collar workers.
A row of tightly trimmed ficus trees along a stretch of sidewalk outside Universal Studios has become a hot spot in the face-off between Hollywood studios and striking screenwriters and actors. Some members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and Writers Guild of America unions — along with sympathetic local politicians — think the studio purposely pruned the trees in an effort to remove a source of shade for workers picketing under the hot Southern California sun.
The two unions claim the studio has infringed on their members’ right to picket as well as their safety by obstructing the public sidewalk in front of their lot. NBCUniversal says it “will cooperate” with any inquiries from the National Labor Relations Board.
Amid growing fears of a lengthy standoff between talent unions and studios, a handful of seasoned negotiators — including federal mediators Javier Ramirez and Jimmy Valentine and power agents Ari Emanuel and Bryan Lourd — are working in the shadows to find a way forward.
Traditional TV is dying. Ad revenue is soft. Streaming isn’t profitable. And Hollywood is practically shut down as the actors and writers unions settle in for what is shaping up to be a long and bitter work stoppage. All of this turmoil will be on investors’ minds as the media industry kicks off its earnings season this week, with Netflix up first on Wednesday.
Picketers emphasize unity between writers, who have been on the lines for more than two months, and performers, who are only on Day 2 of striking — as well as camaraderie between highly paid actors and those with spare screen credits who struggle to scrape by.
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.
Ongoing strikes could disrupt the entertainment industry in fundamental ways, putting the 2024 box office and the fall broadcast lineup in jeopardy.
Barry Diller, chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia Group and former Hollywood studio chief, says that top executives and the highest-paid stars should take a 25% pay cut to narrow the gap between their salaries and those of the folks at the lower end of the pay scale.
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.
With time running out before SAG-AFTRA’s current contract with the studios expires, both sides are considering extending negotiations until next week or slightly later. That extension could run until July 7, accordining to multiple sources. The contract expires June 30 at midnight PT. Stakes are high at this point between both parties, particularly in the wake of a strident letter signed by 1,000-plus high-profile actors including union president Fran Drescher that went public this week. Signed by the likes of Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Amy Schumer and more, the letter says that they’re “prepared to strike” if the guild doesn’t “get all the way there” in its talks with studios and streamers.
Just this year, a slew of female actors from nearly every genre either made the jump to the unscripted space or reaffirmed their place in it.
Less than three months ahead of the planned Sept. 18 ceremony and live telecast, sources say that organizers are actively discussing multiple contingency plans — including delaying the event altogether — if the town’s labor strife hasn’t been resolved later this summer.
Speakers at the Writers Guild of America’s WGA Strong March and Rally for a Fair Contract on Wednesday emphasized the broad support for their cause shown by other Hollywood unions — including actors in their own contract negotiations — and labor at large. Talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group representing studios in negotiations, have not resumed since breaking off hours before the writers’ contract expired on May 1. The strike began a day later, with more and more productions shutting down as it has gone on.
The Paramount+ series shoots in Butte, Mont., and makes use of the city’s Civic Center. Civic Center manager Bill Melvin tells the NBC Montana that 1923‘s production team let him know that the delay stems from the strike, which began May 2.
As of press time, we don’t know if or when SAG-AFTRA will go on strike should its deal with the AMPTP expire on June 30 without a new contract. But with the Writers Guild already on strike, and a SAG-AFTRA strike a distinct possibility, the TV Academy is already starting to mull several different contingency plans on how to adjust the rest of the campaign season calendar — and what to do with the telecast, currently scheduled for Sept. 18 on Fox.
After COVID concerns forced it to be virtual for the last three years, the in-person press tour finally returned in January only to be canceled five months later.
