The talks areset to begin March 20, and the current contract expires May 1.

While company profits have remained high and spending on content has grown, writers are falling behind.

And while series budgets have soared over the past decade, median writer-producer pay has fallen.

Hollywood strike

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In this context, screen minimums are far too low.

For screenwriters, compensation has stagnated over the past four years, the guild said.

This is particularly the case for screenwriters working at or near the guilds minimums.

WGA contract talks

WGA

These conditions are untenable.

Adjusting for inflation, the decline is 23%.

Median weekly pay for showrunners on streaming series is 46% lower than for showrunners on broadcast shows.

Writers of streaming comedy-variety shows are also getting left behind.

Under the current MBA, compensation for writers on streaming comedy-variety series is entirely negotiable.

Unsurprisingly, the amounts paid to these streaming writers are often lower than those paid to their peers.

Span protection limits the period of time covered by a writer-producers episodic fee to 2.4 weeks of work.