Commentary

TV Writers Want A Raise: Do They Know The Real Story Arc Of Episodic Content?

TV writers want more money -- and a potential strike could be on the horizon. Issues include tight, short deadlines, worsening work conditions and other factors.

Hollywood studio executives may counter with statements like: “Hey, you don’t understand. We need to continue to accelerate new TV and movie production. Consumers demand it. But they are resistant to paying more money for it.”

There is rampant speculation that streaming TV/movie production, which has soared in the past few years, will be slowing down -- and may see a sharp reduction or at best, a leveling out of efforts.

At the same time, consumers' TV behaviors constantly are demanding more new content, new TV series. To an extent, this comes with the shortening of the number of episodes per season and overall number of seasons of a TV series.

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But all this is not producing anything close to profitability for any of the streaming/OTT platforms that legacy TV-based media companies have launched in recent years. Netflix is the only premium streaming service that is profitable.

At best, some of the newer streaming services might rise to profitability next year. But this timeline keeps getting delayed -- while a recession still looms for later this year or the beginning of 2024.

What about other off-camera, behind-the-scenes TV and movie production professionals who are looking for a major boost? Perhaps all this means more jobs and other opportunities for new, qualified pros.

Somewhat weirdly -- consumer surveys might tell us that the quality of TV and movie content has never been as high as it is today.

But is it, really? Can everything really be that good?

Is this all about marketing -- consumer and business-to-business? Have we bought into this hook, line, and sinker?

Marketing efforts drive us to content we not only will miss, but will absolutely forget a year or so after their disappearance from streaming and linear TV.

Quantity versus quality is always a big deal. At best, maybe all this should be much less.

Here is a headline from CNET last December: “Not Every TV Show Needs to Be a TV Show”.

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