With the actors union SAG-AFTRA on of Television and Radio Artists) going on strike on top of the Writers Guild of America, which.
With the actors union SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) going on strike on top of the Writers Guild of America, which has been on strike since May 2, this is likely to accelerate the decline in the valuations of cable networks, already hit hard by cord-cutting. SAG-AFTRA has a whopping 160K members.
They were told that they are prohibited not just from all principal on-camera work, including acting, singing, dancing and stunts, but off-camera work such as narration and voice acting. They are also barred from negotiating for future services and doing interviews, podcasts and awards shows. There will be no walking on red carpets anytime soon.
This is unfortunate as the nominees for the 2023 Emmy Awards were only announced yesterday which typically creates a flurry of publicity about the nominees. The move is unprecedented in recent history—the actors union has not called for a strike in more than four decades.
The problem for linear networks is that, first, there will be no new content being created for broadcast and cable networks, which could cause more people to flee for streaming services. Of course, online video services like Netflix NFLX will suffer as well, although they have a bit of a buffer because a number of their hit shows are produced abroad.
But the strikes are likely to result in a large increase in programming costs, which will hurt the bottom line of all content distributors.
