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Why It’s a Brutal Time to Be a TV Writer. The end of Peak TV has ushered in an era of contraction, with fewer buyers and fierce competition for the few shows that are staffing

The end of Peak TV has ushered in an era of contraction, with fewer buyers (farewell, The CW) and fierce competition for the few shows that are staffing: "People are in total survival mode."

Hines was homeless and had been bouncing between camping, couch surfing with friends and the occasional Airbnb before he turned to driving for DoorDash and Grubhub after his 16-week writing job on the Showtime limited series concluded before the strikes began. “You need multiple gigs a year to make a livable wage,” Hines says, noting that competition for lower-level writing jobs has intensified as mid-level scribes and showrunners are increasingly putting themselves up for the few shows that are currently staffing. For this showrunner, the recent salary gains secured in the new MBA are helpful but pale in comparison to the residuals that writers received from working on the type of long-running shows that boasted 24-episode seasons and were the bedrock of broadcast before streaming.

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