A proliferation of “mini rooms” was a key stumbling block to resolving the 2023 Writers Guild of America work stoppage and the brand new three-year deal included minimal staffing necessities to finish the Hollywood writers strike.
However the Canadian TV trade apparently hasn’t obtained the memo about new writers rooms staffing minimums, judging by the Writers Guild of Canada’s newest fairness, variety and inclusion report. The 2024 version factors to a first-ever decline within the quantity of TV episodes ordered by Canadian-based linear TV and streaming platforms, and so work for WGC members.
And a unbroken use of mini rooms north of the border, the place small author groups pump out full dimension TV sequence, is partly guilty. “This statistic, together with a gradual decline within the quantity of WGC members engaged on Canadian TV sequence, are the outcome of the contraction of the Canadian home audiovisual sector and the adoption of dangerous trade practices reminiscent of ‘mini-rooms,’ the WGC report acknowledged.
Latest Canadian TV sequence launches embody World TV’s Homicide in a Small City, a mystery-drama that stars Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk and was picked up by Fox for the U.S. market, and Little Chicken, an indigenous drama that aired on Crave in Canada and PBS stateside.
Throughout the now-ended peak TV increase, a low Canadian greenback in comparison with the U.S. dollar, beneficiant tax credit and rising demand for unique content material by U.S. streaming platforms had TV manufacturing in Toronto, Vancouver and different home hubs at a report tempo.
However with home promoting {dollars} shifting from native linear TV broadcasters to streaming and different digital platforms, Canadian content material manufacturing has slowed as native TV networks pull again on their spending.
And as in Hollywood, Canadian broadcasters and streamers are more and more handing out straight-to-series orders for homegrown TV exhibits, versus the standard pilot growth course of with bigger writers rooms. The newest 2024 WGC report coated 76 home sequence — 53 live-action and 23 animation — that had been produced in 2023, on prime of one other 372 sequence coated within the interval from 2019 to 2022.
“The series covered in this year’s report engaged less writers than ever before. Compared with 2016, the number of WGC members working on Canadian TV decreased by 11 percent,” the Canadian writers guild reported.
The WGC argued declining alternatives for its members impacts their potential to enter and keep within the Canadian TV trade. That’s particularly as numerous Canadian writers from underrepresented communities look to transcend entry-level writers room assignments like story editors to changing into showrunners.
For that, rising writers want time on TV units to find out about pre-production duties, working with TV community execs on set and post-production. “Work opportunities have increased for diverse writers, but positions at the top remain elusive,” the WGC report warned.
