A proliferation of “mini rooms” was a key stumbling block to resolving the 2023 Writers Guild of America work stoppage and the new three-year deal included minimum staffing requirements to end the Hollywood writers strike.
But the Canadian TV industry apparently hasn’t got the memo about new writers rooms staffing minimums, judging by the Writers Guild of Canada’s latest equity, diversity and inclusion report. The 2024 edition points to a first-ever decline in the number of TV episodes ordered by Canadian-based linear TV and streaming platforms, and so work for WGC members.
And a continuing use of mini rooms north of the border, where small writer teams pump out full size TV series, is partly to blame. “This statistic, along with a steady decline in the number of WGC members working on Canadian TV series, are the result of the contraction of the Canadian domestic audiovisual sector and the adoption of harmful industry practices such as ‘mini-rooms,’ the WGC report stated.
Recent Canadian TV series launches include Global TV’s Murder in a Small Town, a mystery-drama that stars Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk and was picked up by Fox for the U.S. market, and Little Bird, an indigenous drama that aired on Crave in Canada and PBS stateside.
During the now-ended peak TV boom, a low Canadian dollar compared to the U.S. greenback, generous tax credits and rising demand for original content by U.S. streaming platforms had TV production in Toronto, Vancouver and other domestic hubs at a record pace.
But with domestic advertising dollars moving from local linear TV broadcasters to streaming and other digital platforms, Canadian content production has slowed as local TV networks pull back on their spending.
And as in Hollywood, Canadian broadcasters and streamers are increasingly handing out straight-to-series orders for homegrown TV shows, as opposed to the traditional pilot development process with larger writers rooms. The latest 2024 WGC report covered 76 domestic series — 53 live-action and 23 animation — that were produced in 2023, on top of another 372 series covered in the period from 2019 to 2022.
“The series covered in this year’s report engaged less writers than ever before. Compared with 2016, the number of WGC members working on Canadian TV decreased by 11 percent,” the Canadian writers guild reported.
The WGC argued declining opportunities for its members impacts their ability to enter and stay in the Canadian TV industry. That’s especially as diverse Canadian writers from underrepresented communities look to go beyond entry-level writers room assignments like story editors to becoming showrunners.
For that, emerging writers need time on TV sets to learn about pre-production duties, working with TV network execs on set and post-production. “Work opportunities have increased for diverse writers, but positions at the top remain elusive,” the WGC report warned.