The Writers Guild of Canada says mini rooms are fueling the decline of local TV work

The proliferation of “mini rooms” was a key obstacle to resolving the 2023 Writers Guild of America work stoppage, and the new three-year agreement included minimum staffing requirements to end the Hollywood writers' strike.

But the Canadian television industry apparently has received no information on new minimum staffing levels for writers' rooms, judging by the Writers Guild of Canada's latest equity, diversity and inclusion report. The 2024 edition indicates a decline for the first time ever in the number of TV episodes ordered from Canadian-based linear TV and streaming platforms, and so it works for WGC members.

And the continued use of mini-rooms north of the border, where small teams of writers produce full-scale 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 Canada's domestic audiovisual sector and the adoption of harmful industry practices such as 'mini-rooms,'” he said the WGC. declared relationship.

Recent Canadian TV series launches include Global TV Murder in a small towna crime film starring Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk, picked up by Fox for the US market, and Little birdan indigenous drama that aired on Crave in Canada and PBS in the United States.

During the peak of the now-ended TV boom, the low Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. greenback, generous tax credits and growing demand for original content from U.S. streaming platforms brought TV production to Toronto, Vancouver and others national hubs at a record pace.

But as national advertising dollars shift from local linear TV stations to streaming and other digital platforms, Canadian content production has slowed as local TV networks reduce their spending.

And as in Hollywood, Canadian broadcasters and streamers are increasingly handing out series orders for homegrown TV shows, as opposed to the traditional pilot development process with larger writing rooms. The latest WGC report from 2024 covered 76 domestic series – 53 live-action and 23 animated – produced in 2023, as well as another 372 series covered from 2019 to 2022.

“The series covered in this year's report involved fewer writers than ever. Compared to 2016, the number of WGC members working in Canadian television decreased by 11%,” the Canadian Writers Guild reported.

The WGC has argued that declining opportunities for its members impacts their ability to enter and remain in the Canadian television industry. This is largely because several Canadian writers from underrepresented communities seek to move beyond entry-level writers' room assignments as story editors to become showrunners.

As such, emerging writers need time on TV sets to learn pre-production duties, working with network executives on set and in post-production. “Job opportunities have increased for diverse writers, but top positions remain elusive,” the WGC report warns.

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