The first simultaneous strike of US writers and actors in more than 60 years brought film and TV productions to a halt for six months. The temporary disruption has had a significant impact across the sector and, subsequently, ZOO’s pipeline of work.
The writers’ strike reach agreement on pay, employment terms and AI
The leadership of the Writers' Guild of America, which represents 11,500 screenwriters, voted on 27 September 2023 to end its strike following resolution of the labour dispute, thereby paving the way for resumption of preparation of new scripts.
The agreement promises increased compensation for the writers and adds new minimum staffing requirements for TV writers’ rooms based on their episode count. The deal also bars the use of AI for writing or rewriting literary material and forbids studios from enforcing writers to use it.
Hollywood actors reach terms to end the longest strike in its union’s history
This was followed on 9 November 2023 when the leadership of the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) agreed contract terms for the next three-year period for its 160,000 members.
The deal, valued at more than $1 billion, includes increases in minimum salaries and a new bonus paid by streaming services. The deal also provides protections against unauthorised use of AI-generated images, preventing actors being replaced by “digital doubles”.
ZOO positioned to take market share as industry recovers
As projects are now resuming, ZOO is well positioned to benefit from the evolving market and changing customer requirements. The industry has been widely impacted and several major buyers have elected to contract their vendor pools, thereby requiring fewer studio personnel to manage these relationships.
As large buyers choose to concentrate work on a smaller number of vendors, there is a growing preference for those that are able to provide an end-to-end (E2E) service, namely, to offer all necessary media services together with subtitling and dubbing across all required languages. ZOO is one of few providers with this capability and scale.
