By Irshad Khan 
The Writers Guild of America has formally opposed a potential mega-merger between major entertainment studios, warning that industry consolidation will devastate employment opportunities for screenwriters and reduce creative diversity across film and television. The Guild’s official statement, delivered to regulatory agencies and industry stakeholders, argues that further consolidation in Hollywood—particularly potential acquisitions involving Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, or Netflix—threatens the fundamental business model that sustains writers’ employment. The WGA, which successfully negotiated AI protections and increased streaming payments during its 2023 strike, contends that mega-mergers concentrate creative decision-making power in fewer corporate hands while simultaneously reducing production volume and therefore the total number of writing assignments available across the industry.
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WGA Sounds Alarm: Consolidation Threatens Writer Employment
The Writers Guild of America issued an official statement opposing further entertainment industry consolidation, particularly in light of reports that newly merged Paramount-Skydance may pursue an acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The Guild warned that mega-mergers—when one major studio acquires another large entertainment company—inevitably result in production cutbacks, elimination of redundant writing divisions, and reduced overall demand for screenwriting services across the industry.
According to the WGA’s statement obtained by Deadline: “Industry consolidation threatens the fundamental conditions that sustain writers’ employment. When companies merge, they eliminate duplicate divisions, reduce overall production, and concentrate decision-making power in fewer hands. These dynamics directly translate to fewer writing assignments, lower overall market demand, and reduced bargaining power for individual writers.” The statement emphasized that consolidation-driven job losses are particularly damaging to mid-level and emerging writers who depend on steady writing assignments to build careers and maintain financial stability.
The Employment Mathematics: Fewer Studios Equal Fewer Jobs
The WGA’s core argument rests on straightforward employment economics: when two studios merge, the consolidated entity requires fewer total employees to accomplish the same work. Duplicate positions—multiple development departments, redundant production executives, parallel marketing teams—get consolidated into single departments. Simultaneously, merged companies typically reduce overall content production as they eliminate competitive pressures between two separate entities.
This double reduction—fewer producers needed per project due to consolidation, plus fewer total projects in production due to reduced volume—creates compounding employment losses for writers. A writer hoping to sell a pilot script to ABC might previously have pitch opportunities at both Disney Television Studios and ABC Studios (before Disney merger), then to Paramount Television and CBS Television Studios (before Paramount-Skydance merger), then to Warner Bros. Television and DC Studios, then to Netflix originals. Each reduction in the number of independent production entities narrows the potential markets for writers’ scripts and reduces overall employment opportunities.
The Peak TV Collapse and Consolidation Cascade
The WGA’s consolidation concerns emerge directly from the streaming era’s boom-and-bust cycle. From 2015-2023, streaming platforms invested massively in content production, creating unprecedented demand for screenwriters. Studios like Disney, Netflix, Apple, Amazon, and others each developed hundreds of simultaneous projects, generating continuous employment opportunities. However, as streaming losses mounted and business models proved unsustainable, studios initiated the reverse process: production cutbacks, content reduction, and strategic consolidation to eliminate redundancy and reduce costs.
The merger of Paramount and Skydance, followed by potential acquisitions of WBD or other studios, represents the logical endpoint of this consolidation trend. As separate studios disappear into larger entities, the total number of independent decision-makers, green-lighting authorities, and distinct production entities shrinks. For writers, this means fewer places to pitch projects, fewer producers seeking screenplays, and more intense competition for a shrinking pool of available assignments. The WGA argues this consolidation-driven employment crisis poses an existential threat to its members’ ability to sustain careers as screenwriters.
SAG-AFTRA Alignment and Collective Industry Concern
The WGA’s consolidation opposition receives implicit support from SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, which issued its own statement warning that “industry consolidation directly impacts casting and acting employment opportunities.” While SAG-AFTRA did not issue an explicit formal opposition to specific mergers, the union noted that fewer independent studios means fewer decision-makers controlling casting choices, potentially disadvantaging actors outside preferred networks.
Both guilds’ concerns suggest that entertainment labor organizations recognize consolidation as a structural threat to their members’ employment prospects. Unlike typical business acquisitions in other industries, where consolidation might improve efficiency without reducing total employment, entertainment consolidation necessarily reduces employment in creative roles. Fewer competing studios means fewer films produced, fewer series greenlit, and therefore fewer writers hired, fewer actors cast, fewer producers employed, and fewer crew members working.
Regulatory Arguments and Antitrust Implications
The WGA’s formal opposition to potential mergers carries regulatory significance. When guilds present formal statements opposing consolidation, they provide regulators with documented evidence that mergers harm labor markets and employment. Such statements strengthen arguments that mergers should face regulatory scrutiny under antitrust law, particularly if consolidated entities can demonstrate market dominance or anti-competitive behavior.
The WGA explicitly argued in its statement: “Consolidation reduces competitive pressure on studios to maintain diverse creative staffs and continuous production pipelines. When fewer independent entities control content production, the bargaining power of individual workers diminishes and overall industry employment necessarily contracts.” This framing positions consolidation as harmful not just to writers but to broader competitive dynamics in entertainment markets. Regulatory bodies increasingly consider labor market impacts when evaluating merger proposals, particularly when organized labor presents formal opposition backed by economic analysis.
Post-2023 Strike Context: Institutional Memory and Vulnerability
The WGA’s consolidation opposition gains particular urgency given the 2023 strike’s intensive focus on AI protections and streaming economics. During contract negotiations, studios argued they needed flexibility to control costs amid streaming losses—a position that contributed to the strike’s length and intensity. The subsequent rapid consolidation and massive layoffs suggest studios used the strike’s conclusion as cover for restructuring that may have been planned regardless of labor agreement outcomes.
The WGA argues that consolidation represents a betrayal of the spirit of the 2023 strike agreement, which explicitly acknowledged streaming’s economic importance to writers’ future employment. By consolidating studios and reducing overall production before giving streaming economics time to stabilize, studios are unilaterally creating the employment crisis that writers feared when they struck over streaming payment formulas. The union contends that consolidation cancels the protective value of the hard-won 2023 agreement by structurally reducing the total number of writing assignments before any streaming business model can mature.
The Paramount-Skydance Precedent and WBD Concerns
The WGA’s consolidation opposition was particularly sharpened by the Paramount-Skydance merger earlier in 2025, which immediately triggered 1,000 layoffs (with 1,000 more planned) despite the merger’s stated purpose of creating a stronger combined entity. For the WGA, the Paramount-Skydance experience validates concerns that mergers inevitably result in employment losses regardless of merger rationale or promised benefits. If Paramount-Skydance proceeds to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery—creating a truly massive consolidated entity—employment losses could be catastrophic for writers across television and film.
The LA Times reported that the WGA’s statement specifically highlighted WBD as a consolidation concern: “Warner Bros. Discovery controls significant television and film production capacity across HBO, Max, Warner Bros. Pictures, and DC Studios. An acquisition by Paramount-Skydance would consolidate competitors controlling nearly 30% of theatrical film production and 40% of premium television production. Such consolidation would necessarily reduce overall content production and writer employment across both broadcast and streaming platforms.”
Broader Industry Consolidation Trends and Writer Concerns
Beyond specific merger concerns, the WGA expressed broader anxiety about the entire entertainment industry’s consolidation trajectory. When Disney acquired Fox studios, when AT&T merged with Time Warner to create Warner Bros. Discovery, when Amazon merged with MGM, and when multiple streaming platforms consolidated, each transaction reduced independent creative entities. The cumulative effect of years of consolidation is an entertainment industry with far fewer independent decision-makers than existed during the Peak TV era just a few years ago.
Screen Rant observed: “Writers Guild concerns about consolidation reflect a fundamental industry transformation from a competitive marketplace with dozens of independent production entities to an oligopoly dominated by five or six mega-corporations. In such an environment, writers’ leverage diminishes, competition for assignments intensifies, and overall employment opportunities contract.” The WGA argues that unless regulatory bodies intervene to prevent further consolidation, the entertainment industry could evolve into a structure where writers have minimal leverage and insufficient employment opportunities to sustain viable careers.
What Success Looks Like: Regulatory Intervention
For the WGA’s opposition to consolidation to meaningfully impact merger outcomes, regulatory agencies must act on the Guild’s concerns. The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice possess authority under antitrust law to challenge mergers that substantially reduce competition or harm labor markets. The WGA’s formal statement provides documented evidence of labor market harm, which regulators can consider when evaluating whether proposed mergers serve the public interest.
However, regulatory intervention in entertainment consolidation has been limited in recent years, with most proposed major mergers ultimately approved despite labor concerns. The WGA recognizes this reality but contends that formal opposition serves important functions: documenting consolidation harms for future litigation or regulatory proceedings, publicly raising awareness of employment consequences, and strengthening the union’s negotiating position in future labor agreements by demonstrating industry-wide structural challenges beyond any single company’s control.
The Uncertain Future: Writers and the Consolidated Industry
As the entertainment industry continues consolidating, the WGA faces the fundamental challenge of representing writers in an employment marketplace increasingly characterized by scarcity rather than abundance. The Peak TV era’s relatively abundant writing assignments, diverse production entities, and competitive competition for talent appears to be ending. The consolidated future appears to offer fewer opportunities, more intense competition, and reduced bargaining power for individual writers.
The WGA’s formal opposition to further consolidation represents an attempt to sound an alarm and potentially slow industry consolidation through regulatory and public pressure. However, unless regulatory agencies intervene or financial pressures reverse, entertainment industry consolidation appears likely to continue. For writers, the consolidated industry will demand new strategies—perhaps increased focus on independent production, direct-to-platform development, or diversification into other entertainment formats—to maintain viable careers in a structurally transformed marketplace where fewer studios control more production capacity while maintaining lower overall production volume.