Talks between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) broke down, leading to a writers strike starting on Tuesday, an action that will likely disrupt Apple TV+ and other streaming services’ productions. Still, streaming-focused firms like Apple TV+ and Netflix may have an edge.
Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter told Barron’s that the strike’s biggest impact will be on late night shows and soap operas, followed by network channels that are strict with their prime-time show release cadences in September.
“Streaming is far less affected, because there is no real regular cadence (see Westworld gap of more than a year, Game of Thrones the same, Succession the same) and because the streamers generally have a lot of content from outside the U.S.,” Pachter said…
Rosenblatt Securities analyst Barton Crockett wrote in a Tuesday note that the strike mainly impacts television. He thinks films will only be marginally affected, for now.
The Writers Guild of America said it called the strike, which was effective at 12.01 a.m. Pacific time, after six weeks of negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers didn’t yield a contract. The AMPTP negotiated on behalf of Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Discovery-Warner, NBCUniversal, Paramount and Sony.
MacDailyNews Take: Hopefully, Apple anticipated the possibility of a writer strike and stockpiled some series and/or is bringing in more content from outside of the U.S. as Apple TV+ is just really starting, with a small, generally high-quality library, so production interruptions are a concern.
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