The hot ticket at this year's ATX TV Festival wasn't one of the show premieres, but the WGA on Strike! panel at the Stateside, reflecting the energy around the future of writing in TV, and the importance of the current contract negotiations
The reality of TV today is that the old model of putting a bunch of writers in a room to develop a script, and then having them around to finesses and consult on set – and, importantly, paying them for that work – is dying. Or, rather, is being killed by media corporations. All that means that these current negotiations are about getting ahead of next big shift, and with the Directors Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild, and WGA all renegotiating at the same time, it's that rare moment when everyone is in the same position. Moreover, both the Teamsters and International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees are honoring the WGA picket lines, amplifying the pressure on AMPTP.
There's a disconnect between the owners and the staff. As Willimon noted, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav wasn't across the table from the WGA reps in the unimpressive conference room in the Sherman Oaks strip mall where the negotiations are happening."He's at BU getting booed." Moreover, the concept of the showrunner focuses the attention on one genius, and diminishes the vital collaborative nature of the writers room. Or, as Grillo-Marxuach bluntly put it,"The problem with our industry is that there's too many goddam geniuses and not enough artisans."