On May 2nd, 11,500 writers from the Writer’s Guild of America went on strike due to a labor dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. At the heart of it, writers are fighting for higher minimum pay, improved residuals for streaming shows, and regulating the use of artificial intelligence programs. As of now, there is no immediate end in sight. The strike’s timing didn’t cause any disruption to broadcast networks - spring finales were already completed, and in Q3, most prime programming is either reality-based (unscripted) or repeats.
It has already affected the upcoming fall season. The upfront presentations, which typically include star actors of the network, did not have any this year. In their place were executives, athletes, news anchors, and sports analysts who were left to handle the festivities. On a deeper scale, the potential lack of scripted programming has upended the marketplace, causing advertisers to back off on spending some of those upfront dollars due to the uncertainty surrounding what networks will be airing in the fall.
So what will networks do to prepare for a long strike? It depends on the network. CBS and NBC are banking on a resolution - they’ve put hits like NCIS and Law and Order: SVU on the fall schedule. They are hoping a resolution will be reached by August. If that’s the case, they expect no delay in delivering scripted shows by the fall premiere season.
FOX hasn’t completed production on any live-action scripted series nor unveiled a Fall '23 prime schedule.
Prime isn’t the only daypart networks are concerned about. Late-night shows like Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, SNL, and Steven Colbert will be airing re-runs for now. Daytime soaps will be doing the same. A heavier emphasis will be placed on live sports for those networks that carry them.
The issue moving forward is that the lack of scripted programming will increase the amount of reality programming in prime. Unfortunately, the reality genre doesn’t have the same cache for some advertisers. Many higher-end advertisers avoid reality programming altogether. And historically, scripted shows attract higher ad prices and better environments for companies to sell their products. But this year, placing ads in reality programming may be unavoidable.
With a soft deadline of August being the cutoff to get writers back and have scripted programming ready to go by the fall, only time will tell what the landscape will look like.