So if an agreement between SA A and the alliance
of motion picture and television producers is not made by
tonight, we could be looking at an actor strike
and it's looking like there's not going to be a
happy Hollywood ending. So the current contract expires at
11 59 pm. Tonight, Pacific Standard Time.
A a spokesperson said, quote, we are committed
to the negotiating process and will explore and exhaust every
possible opportunity to make a deal. However, we
are not confident that the employers have any intention of
bargaining towards an agreement. Now, the actors in
the studios have been going back and forth on the
current contract which initially expired on July 1st was granted
an extension until today. And at the top of
the list is concerned over payment each time people rewatch
a streaming episode similar to how residual payments are made
when episodes re air on television. There's also concerns
about artificial intelligence and it being used to train systems
to take on actors likenesses or voices. Now,
these final days of talks have involved a federal mediator
which was requested on Monday by the studios S A
however, has said it will not grant another extension
if a deal is not made this time around.
So how will the actor strike affect production overall?
Here, we already know Hannah, that the writers
strike which has been going on early may has delayed
many movie and television series, but filming was still
allowed as long as scripts didn't involve any rewrites,
taking the actors out of the equation. However,
means the industry will pretty much shut down overnight.
So already the fall season of television, which is
when most networks debut their new programming is in limbo
. So writers typically enter the writers room for those
projects in May. And as a result of all
the delays in the strike, we're seeing a similar
phenomenon to the previous writers strike in 2008, which
means more reality TV, which doesn't involve writers.
And in this case, many people who can be
cast in those do not have to be union actors
, but the streamers may have a leg up in
the situation since many streaming shows are produced as a
full season, those companies stockpiled content earlier preparing for
these strikes. And in addition, streamers can more
on international content for their service. And that is
interesting. So what does this mean for the broader
entertainment industry as a whole? Well, had I
remember the first day of the writers strike, entertainment
companies lost about$10 billion in combined market value.
So we're gonna have to keep an eye on the
stocks tomorrow because the actor strike is sure to have
an impact. And this is going to be the
first time since 1960 that both writers and actors are
on strike. And interestingly enough that strike was based
on residual payments for movies going to television. There
are about 160,000 actors in SA A and there's currently
11,500 people in the Writers Guild of America and already
the entertainment community Fund which provides support and resources to
those in the entertainment industry has said request for aid
has doubled compared to the seven months prior to the
writers strike.