The Big Squeeze

Hooray! It’s 2024! Cue the good vibes! It already feels like its eons away from financial plague of 2023. There’s a new spring in everyone’s step. The food tastes sweeter, the sun feels warmer (when the atmospheric river isn’t hitting), and the jobs… well, we all just know that they’re coming back soon, its just a matter of when.?I wouldn't breakout the good champagne just yet... hell, I'd even keep the Korbel corked up.

After a year of slowdown, strikes, and financial grief -it appears the studios could still have the upper hand in the long run. And this year's contract negotiations might turn into the worst game of wage limbo we've ever seen. Ask yourself, how low are you willing to go?

My old man used to tell me, “the one thing in life you have to learn is the 'golden rule'… 'whoever has the gold makes the rules.” For those of you unscripted brethren who’ve been crawling through the barren wasteland of unemployment, I’ve got good news and bad news...

The good news is that networks no longer have their best shows stashed away in their vault anymore. They’re running the airwaves with fumes. Big Media?needs?to make content.. because there's only so much?Jeopardy?the American audience is willing to take. But?even as the production engine slowly chugs it way out of train yard… its obvious that there won't be enough seats for those passengers desperate to get on board.?

Which leads me to the bad news... If you just happen to visit the business social site, LinkedIn (hint: you’re on it), you might happen to notice the #openforwork attached to many profile pictures. Translation: (if you’re picking up what I’m throwing down) there most likely won’t be enough work for the amount of workers who are actively looking for work.?

And this supply vs. demand ratio for production can only mean one thing: ?TV staff gigs will most likely be offered at “fire-sale" rates. Think Oliver Twist "please sir, may I have some more..." Production workers have been starved financially for months and are at a point of desperation. To put it simply, it's a beggars market, and beggars can’t be choosers.?

I wouldn’t put it past some of the most talented & hard-working, producers to slash their pay rates in order to land a coveted position. The same goes for camera, editors, audio, etc. In the non-union world, ?it will soon become "survival of the cheapest.” Everything the Unions hope to avoid, we in non-union will face ten fold. Revenge, as they say, is a dish best served cold.

Perhaps this was foreshadowed when the infamous studio exec issued the ‘cruel but necessary’ statement last summer: “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.” And in the words of a 1998 mundane mall map, "you are here.”?

Welcome to the Big Squeeze… may the odds be ever in your favor.?