Screenwriting : Bad stats for TV by James Grant Goldin

That is a pretty interesting situation....how the number of scripted series has almost doubled in the last five years....but the average number of produced broadcast episodes per show has gone down from 26 to 15. That affects all of the different union people working on those shows, and trickles down to the outside service providers of those shows, too.

I bet the top-rated network shows run 20 or more episodes, though.

Bad math, plain and simple.

Bill

I have friends who work post-production facilities and they are slammed with work, doing 12-16hr work shifts since last year. I think TV and Cable Networks are stacking shows, pushing them into post-production, in case of a Writer's strike.

I agree that writers deserve more money. The article states that they seem to have settled on that point. But shows hire entire writers' ROOMS - not one writer per show - so the 20% to 6% nonsense is bogus math, or simply above the author's head. Then The Beltway Reporter states "Half of all writers are making more money, and half are making less," which is about as misleading and nonsensical a statement as ever I've read - even if it made sense, it's unqualified.