Last summer’s strikes, as writers and actors took on the studios, led to historic change – but how is the industry faring now?
Fans of Pete Davidson who tuned in to watch him host Saturday Night Live were disappointed to find a rerun instead. Viewers of Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel found they too had gone dark. While late-night TV had found ingenious ways to stay on air during a global pandemic, this was different.
It was a year ago this month that screenwriters hit the picket lines. Actors followed suit with a walkout in mid-July, the first time that the two unions had been on strike together since 1960. As Hollywood came to a standstill, studios were forced to the negotiating table on issues including minimum pay, streaming residuals and guardrails against the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
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