Drew Barrymore said she would pause production on her daytime talk show after facing tremendous backlash from writers, actors and fans over her decision to bring the show back amid the Hollywood strike.
“I have listened to everyone, and I am making the decision to pause the show’s premiere until the strike is over,” she said in a statement posted on Instagram. “I have no words to express my deepest apologies to anyone I have hurt and, of course, to our incredible team who works on the show and has made it what it is today.”
Barrymore announced on Sept. 10 that “The Drew Barrymore Show” would kick up production again amid the writers’ and actors’ strikes, which led to protests and picketing from the Writers Guild of America outside her New York studio last week.
Writers have been on strike for more than four months, campaigning for better pay and protections in the streaming era. The Screen Actors Guild started its own strike in July over similar issues, including better residual pay from streaming services. The “Drew Barrymore Show” employs three WGA writers, all of whom picketed outside the show’s taping last week.
“I truly hope for a resolution for the entire industry very soon,” Barrymore wrote on Instagram on Sunday. Representatives for Barrymore did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CBS originally announced in early September that Barrymore’s show would return for a new season with a premiere date of Sept. 18. A CBS Media spokesperson said Sunday that the company stands with Barrymore.
“We support Drew’s decision to pause the show’s return and understand how complex and difficult this process has been for her,” the spokesperson said.
As taping was underway on Monday and Tuesday, those who attended said they were greeted by WGA protesters and picketers, who chanted phrases like “CBS! You are a mess!” and “We expect more from Drew Barry-more!” Some audience members were handed WGA support pins. According to multiple reports, two Barrymore fans wearing WGA pins were asked to leave the taping for security reasons.
“The Guild has, and will continue to, picket struck shows that are in production during the strike. Any writing on ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’ is in violation of WGA rules,” a post on the WGA East’s Instagram account said last week.
Her decision to resume production also prompted the National Book Awards to rescind its invitation to Barrymore to host the next ceremony. Writers on social media criticized Barrymore for moving ahead with the taping. In May, Barrymore declined to host the MTV Movie and TV Awards to support the strike.
A number of daytime talk shows have remained in production despite the strike, including “The View.” Similarly, “Jeopardy!” announced in August that it would return with recycled questions for its 40th season.
Last week, “The Jennifer Hudson Show” and “The Talk” announced they would return during the strike shortly after Barrymore made her decision. It’s unclear if those shows will pause production, too.
How do you know they’re able to? Looking at Disney as a specific case, they’ve lost over 1 billion on their movies in the past 2 years and are constantly bleeding subscribers. On top of that there’s also some persistent rumors that they got caught up in the whole FTX debacle and lost a bunch of money on that as well.
Also, as a quick aside: what would you consider to be fair to their workers? The wages I’ve heard being mentioned sounded pretty good to me already, especially compared to other jobs.
Subs are fluctuating, but you’re exaggerating to describe it as “bleeding”. They’re at 164 million and were even outperforming Netflix at the end of 2022.
Now that’s a crazy demand! Did you know he replaced their last CEO who left in 2022 with an exit package worth $23.4 million? Even when they’re gone, Disney’s CEOs are raking in Disney cash. Maybe if Iger made 1 million max in annual target compensation, his writers could afford a roof over their heads?
I had a look and the current subscriber numbers for Disney+ are at 146 million, they haven’t been at 164 million since Q4 2022. So they’ve actually dropped 18 million subscribers in less than a year, which is more than 10% of their subs.
I do agree that CEOs earn way too much money, they could get by earning much less and it would be nice if this money went to the other employees instead. However, I don’t fully agree with the statement that writers can’t afford a roof over their heads. I did some googling and the average salary for a writer in Hollywood is almost $70,000 a year. Digging a bit deeper, I found this:
So if these numbers are correct, a writer for a streaming show makes on average $90,920 for a 20 week show. If they have 2 of those shows a year, that’s a yearly salary of more than $180,000 + 12 weeks of vacation at a minimum (don’t know if they need the full 20 weeks to write the show). I know they live in an expensive part of the country but come on, you can’t say that that’s a low wage, regardless of whether you think they deserve more or not. If you look at the average salary in the entire USA (~ $60,000) they make about triple that. Hell, they make even more than double the average salary in California ($73,000) (source)
What is the main issue is residuals. Writers used to get decent kickbacks from repeat airing of their work and that accumulated body of work was how you gained security in an industry where the next gig might not materialize. Most people in film live a feast and famine lifestyle but writers are less secure than most technicians. Also it’s kind of modeled over how we deal with creative IP like books. The body of work belongs in some way to it’s creator tied by legal strings.
What happened was basically streaming services got cut a really REALLY good deal particularly on writing labor and residuals (though there were other kickbacks) when they debuted because nobody wanted to kill the baby that was the experimental model of streaming. That meant those jobs were far less lucrative… But all those higher paying jobs in network television were still around.
Streaming ain’t a baby anymore. It grew up and it became the dominant model taking over the space that used to be network jobs meaning all those good paying jobs dried up. The streaming kid is out of college and working full time earning more money than the parents yet still gobbling all the food in the fridge, it’s time to kick them out of their parent’s basement and let them live as an adult. That good deal they got initially cut was not supposed to last them into the level of success where they were in a position to use it to perpetually starve everyone who helped make them successful in the first place.
Thanks for the explanation and additional context, that helps put things into perspective a bit more. I understand that they want a different kind of monetary reward from streaming, hopefully they can get their deal eventually.
Between 2018 and 2021 Hollywood CEO pay rose 51% and writer pay didn’t budge (actually dropped 14% when adjusted for inflation).
The writers are asking for 16% over three years according to the article I’m reading. Which is still less than inflation and far less than CEO wage increases. That’s what the writers feel is fair, less than inflation and 40% less than CEOs.
As far as what I personally feel is fair? Seize the means of production and tar and feather the rich assholes who continue to abuse the working class. But I’m not in the negotiations so my opinion doesn’t really count.