teejaysplace24

Virtually all productions have been stalled over the writers strike.  Film and television productions rely on extensive planning and it's impossible to plan if you don't know whether you will be able to lock down locations or get into your normal place of work.  To their credit, the writers have been doing an excellent job of being disruptive. Those productions that have tried to forge ahead have largely failed and what work they have done has not been particularly efficient.  Inefficiency costs money.  Producers hate spending money for any reason, but especially when it appears, to them, wasteful. So this is going to remain a problem until the strike is resolved.

Dooofus said:

They are not helping to sustain their profession by striking. The last time they did this, a lot of writing jobs were eliminated by a switch to reality shows.

Many facets of their profession are already unsustainable.  There's a lot of nuance to the argument, but among the biggest issues is streaming numbers.  Since the beginning of filmed entertainment, content creators have had access to some method — be it coins in the nickelodeon, box office receipts, or Neilson ratings — to gauge the popularity of their works. (And by extension, their own value to their employers, which if significant, they could then leverage into something approximating career stability.)  For the better part of a century, an entire business model was built and sustained around this premise.  But the advent of streaming has placed those metrics behind a veiled curtain and streamers have unilaterally refused to share that data.  It's a huge issue that affects everyone in the business, right down to the below-the-line crew.  The writers are correct in holding the line on this one, as a win here is a win for everyone. 

Put another way: Imagine if Apple suddenly started refusing to share download or purchase data with App Store developers and instead offered everyone a one-time flat fee for each title. Instead of their typical 30% take, they then just keep all the profits.  Perhaps good for Apple in the short term.  But without any sustainable income, app development would become little more than a hobby, updates would stop, the talent pool would drain away, and the entire business model of the App Store would implode. That's what Apple (and their cohorts) have been proposing for content creators.