"The details of the new Writers Guild contract are out,” writer and comedian Adam Conover tweeted Tuesday night. "We won.”
It’s hard to argue with Conover’s two-word conclusion. Guaranteed compensation, success-based residuals, AI limitations, staffing minimums, additional production guarantees, and more of the particulars of the WGA’s deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers were, Conover continued, "essential protections that the companies told us, to our faces, that they would NEVER give us. But because of our solidarity, because they literally cannot make a dollar without us, they bent, then broke, and gave us what we deserve. WE WON.”
His points are all accurate. But there is one more hard-fought battle worth mentioning, one that ultimately may have lost the AMPTP the war: the PR battle. Because in the all-important court of public opinion, the studios got absolutely wiped out by the scrappy writers union, and none of their high-priced media consultants could do a thing about it.