WGA West Unleashes New Report Accusing Streamers of Abusing Their Dominance

The Netflix logo on top of their office building in Hollywood, Calif., on Jan. 20, 2022. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

Despite both Writers and Actors Guild picketers getting a reprieve Monday due to cancellation because of Hurricane Hilary, it looks as if the Writers Guild of America (WGA) West’s fight against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is heating up.

Last week the WGA West released a report (pdf) titled “The New Gatekeepers: How Disney, Amazon, and Netflix Will Take Over Media,” which called for antitrust regulators to prevent merging in the streaming marketplace. The report accused studios of engaging in anti-competitive practices “to disadvantage competing producers and streaming services, reduce output, creativity, and choice in content, and push down wages for creative workers.”

Streamers’ Market Share Has Lessened Wages and Viewer Choice

It argued that Netflix, Amazon, and Disney have “amassed market power through mergers and other anti-competitive practices.” The guild also argued that the companies have shown they will “abuse a position of dominance” to harm their competitors and that further consolidation will result in fewer writers able to make a living.

“Without intervention, these conglomerates will seize control of the media landscape and the streaming era’s advances for creativity and choice will be lost. These new gatekeepers have amassed market power through mergers and other anti-competitive practices, offering an alarming window into the future of media,” the report said.

WGA West Research & Public Policy Director Laura Blum-Smith told Deadline that studios have essentially consolidated the business to a select few companies, which has depressed writers’ wages and created poor working conditions.

“Writers being forced to strike in this climate should come as a surprise to no one,” said Blum-Smith. “We’re transitioning from a period of rapid investment and competition that brought about new and diverse content to a monopolistic model that will concentrate control over entertainment programming in the hands of just a few large and powerful corporations. For writers, that means fewer buyers for their work, employers who exert more leverage in individual deal negotiations, and depressed pay and working conditions.”

Disney, Amazon, Netflix Go Acquisition Crazy

Specifically, the report noted that Disney has grown through a series of multibillion-dollar acquisitions, using its power to reduce film output, shut down competing studios, foreclose independent content from its distribution networks, expand control of the labor market, and force creators to give up financial participation in future licensing revenue. The acquisitions of ABC broadcast network, followed by Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm, Twentieth Century Fox, and a majority share in Hulu are those by the Walt Disney Company.

Amazon has gained a sizeable footprint in media in a short time by “utilizing the cumewell-donted playbook critical to its ascendance as a tech company.” It goes on to note that “through anticompetitive behavior and vertical integration,” the streamer has “harmed competitors, privileged its related business, and abused employer leverage to underpay writers.”

Amazon’s purchase of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM) - it’s second-largest ever acquisition - was noted as evidence of the company’s intent to use it’s platform monopoly.

In terms of Netflix, the report said that the once innovative competitor “is now using its position as the largest streaming service in the world to abuse its leverage as an employer, decrease innovative content spending and raise prices for consumers.” Moreover, it noted “the company has cut out independent producers and severely underpaid writers in multiple areas, and a series of recent acquisitions signal its intent to further increase dominance and market power in order to reduce innovative content investment.”

With over 220 million paid subscribers, Netflix has gone beyond being a pro-competitive player to “pursuing a strategy of pure vertical integration and strategic acquisitions.”

WGA Wants Streaming Regulated, Plain and Simple

The WGA strongly emphasized the need for regulation on streaming.

“Streaming video is now the dominant distribution platform for content, but it is largely unregulated, taking the problems of vertical integration and media consolidation to the extreme,” it said. “Streaming’s dominant employers have used their leverage to erode the sustainability of writing work; further consolidation could result in fewer writers able to earn a living and diminished variety in the marketplace of ideas.”

The report was released as the WGA marked its 108th day on strike. It was on May 2, 2023, that the WGA representing some 11,500 screenwriters went on strike over an ongoing labor dispute with the AMPTP.