According to Deadline, on-location production of scripted television in Los Angeles has been completely halted because of the Writers Guild of America Strike, which has been going on for five weeks. This data comes from FimLA, the county film permit office, and the city, according to Deadline.
“In a normal week at this time of year, there would be dozens of scripted television projects in production. By contrast, we have no scripted TV series with permits to film this week,” said Philip Sokoloski, FilmLA spokesman, to Deadline.
In the first week of the strike, nine scripted series had pulled permits to film on-location in Los Angeles, it went down to seven series the second week of the strike, then to five the third week, and one the fourth week of the strike.
The number of location permits that were taken out for TV and film projects 62.8% from this time a year ago. There were 128 overall location permits for the week of June 4 this year and there were 344 in the same time period last year.
“These are the categories into which all scripted projects fall, though not all production within these categories is affected by the labor action,” Sokoloski said to Deadline. “Reality TV, as one example, still appears in these counts in addition to non-union independent films.”
The WGA strike began on May 2 after negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers did not reach a satisfactory agreement. The guild’s main issues are duration of employment, large increases in compensation, the use of artificial intelligence to create scripts, the establishment of viewer-based streaming residuals, and minimum staffing.
SAG-AFTRA started negotiations with the AMPTP for a contract this morning. Members of the Directors Guild are in the process of ratifying a new contract reached on June 4.