Writers Guild: Hollywood ‘Remains Highly Profitable’ Despite Wall Street Woes

thewrap.com:

contract negotiation website that Hollywood “remains highly profitable” and vowing to ensure that writers get their fair share of that profit in upcoming contract negotiations with studios.“Gloomy stories about business model uncertainty, company layoffs and the industry’s impending downturn are both standard refrains during union contract negotiations and the predictable result of Wall Street’s narrow focus on stock price and short-term profits,” the WGA wrote. “Such coverage distracts from a fundamental truth: the content created for this industry has tremendous value, and the companies have demonstrated time and time again that they can and will capture that value.”The WGA’s new “State of the Industry” report argued the guild’s case, pointing to the combined annual operating profits of Netflix, Paramount, Warner Bros., Comcast, Fox and Disney.

Those combined profits reached between $28-30 billion each year between 2017 and 2021. The Writers Guild acknowledged that profits took a considerable downturn in 2022 for a variety of factors, such as the Warner Bros.

Discovery merger that led to billions in content write-downs and which the Writers Guild condemned, as it has in the past, as “ill-advised.” But the Guild also pointed to still rising streaming subscription numbers and prices, as well as the pivot towards advertising on streaming services, as proof that “the fundamentals of the business—demand for valuable content—remain strong.”“Faced with this picture, analysts and the mainstream press continue their nervous coverage of the entertainment business, reflecting the reality that even when industry profits are high, Wall Street demands that those profits continually grow.