During The Hollywood Strike, Entertainment PR Firms Are Hit Hard:
The top leaders of Hollywood’s biggest companies are going to meet today. There are rumors that there are disagreements within the C-suites, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to end the writers’ and actors’ strikes.
We’ve heard that Disney’s Dana Walden as well as Alan Bergman, Amazon Studios’ Mike Hopkins as well as Jennifer Salke, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Universal’s Donna Langley, as well as Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav are all going to be there.
The CEO of Mouse House, Bob Iger, will not be at this meeting. He is going back to his old plan of having Walden as well as Bergman handle most of the labor moves.
As Of August 25th, TECF Has Given A Total Of $5.5 Million For Food, Power Bills, And Other Needs:
We know that part of what Iger did was follow a general CEO strategy of keeping some space until it was time for him to become more directly involved. Dominic Patten, Senior Editor of Deadline, said, “It’s clear that they don’t always agree on how to handle this.”
“I think you’re seeing a split between the older media companies as well as the younger, tech-based media companies. There are simply different ways to deal alongside this situation.
Actors and writers are having a hard time because of this strike. The Entertainment Community Fund (TECF), which used to be called the Actors Fund, has given out $5.5 million as of August 25 for things like food, power bills, and other needs.
The AMPTP Stated It Is Waiting For The WGA’s Official Answer To The Offer Made On August 11:
As the fallout from the bad meeting on August 22 between Iger, Sarandos, Langley, Zaslav, the AMPTP’s Lombardini, and WGA representatives, and the release of the studios’ latest offer, grows, there are no plans for new talks with the guild.
Add to that the fact that the WGA turned down the deal on August 24 by saying it was “neither nothing nor nearly enough,” and there is more distrust than ever between the two sides.
That means that the WGA as well as the AMPTP aren’t even close to making a deal to bring an end the 121-day reporters strike, let alone the 48-day SAG-AFTRA strike.
The AMPTP stated it is waiting for the WGA’s written answer to the deal from August 11. The guild claims it made a response on August 15 which means the companies and streams now have to do something.
The Strike By Writers Is Now Well Into Its Fourth Month:
All of this implies that the newly hired crisis PR company Levinson Group could discover that its main job right away is to handle the tension between studio CEOs to be the writers protest drags on into its fourth month.
“Before some people wanted to take responsibility Carol, they said she was stuck via a pre-streaming playbook,” said someone who knew how the studio bosses and streamer bosses got along.
“They are the only ones to blame for how things look right now. So, they hired the Levinson Group, as well as that’s why they’re fighting.”
Actors And Writers Are Pushing For Better Pay And Residuals For Streaming Material That Are Based On How Well It Does:
WGA members walked off the job for the first time on May 2. Since then, they have been seen picketing outside of major Hollywood studios to keep fighting for an agreement that fulfills their requests for better pay, success-based residuals for streaming content, as well as rules about the use of artificial intelligence.
Some big studio bosses are worried that even if they reach a deal in the next few weeks and start making movies again within the new year, there will be a dry spell within the theater release schedule, like there was between October and August of last year because of COVID.
Some movies coming out in Q4 and Q1 need ADR, and if the strikes keep going, they could be moved. For the top people in Hollywood, the longer the walkouts last, the less likely it is that movies and TV shows will be produced within the next year. With less goods, there are less jobs.
