Not all it’s cracked up to be

Streaming TV’s boom is a mixed blessing for some Hollywood writers

LOS ANGELES — It seemed like a good deal. At first.

Last April, Netflix offered Kay Reindl and her longtime writing partner a substantial sum — in the mid-six figures, Reindl said — to oversee 10 episodes of a new sci-fi series, “Sentient.” It sounded like a lot of money for what they figured would be less than a year of work.

Reindl and her writing partner, who have worked steadily as TV writers since the 1990s, would be executive producers, instead of staff writers on someone else’s show. That would mean a lot more responsibility and much longer hours, but it seemed worth it. They found office space and hired a few writers.

Then came a surprise: They learned that “Sentient” would actually take 18 months from start to finish. When Reindl did the math, she realized that, under the new timetable, she would be making roughly the same weekly pay as the writers she was overseeing.

“It was a very bad day,” Reindl said. Netflix declined to comment.

The rise of streaming has been a blessing and a curse for working writers like Reindl, who said she and her partner had ultimately left “Sentient” because of creative differences unrelated to the length of the series. On-demand digital video has ushered in the era of Peak TV, meaning there are more shows and more writing jobs than ever. But many of the jobs are not what they used to be in the days before streaming.

“All this opportunity is great, but how to navigate it and keep yourself consistently working and making your living has been the challenging part,” said Stu Zicherman, a writer and showrunner whose credits include “The Americans” on FX and HBO’s “Divorce.”

When Reindl got her start, network series had 24 episodes or more a season. The typical TV writer’s schedule looked something like this: Get hired by May or June, write furiously for most of the year and then take a six-week hiatus before the process started again.

The seasonal rhythms that had been in place for TV writers since the days of “I Love Lucy” started to change more than two decades ago, when cable outlets put out 13-episode seasons of shows like HBO’s “The Sopranos” and, later, AMC’s “Mad Men.”

Streaming platforms have revised that model further: eight-episode seasons of Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and Disney Plus’ “The Mandalorian”; six-episode seasons of Amazon Prime Video’s “Fleabag”; three- and six-episode batches of Netflix’s “Black Mirror.” Cable has replied in kind, offering fewer than 12-episode runs of shows.

“I think they’re experimenting with the shortest product they can still call a TV series,” said Steve Conrad, president of Elephant Pictures, a production company in Chicago.

Complicating the issue is that streaming platforms have been known to take more time to make an episode than their network and cable counterparts. For many writers, that meant less money for more hours.

The Writers Guild of America has worked out some protections for its union members. Since 2018, studios are sometimes required to pay writers extra when filming runs longer than expected.

Streaming seasons that require a short time commitment — say, eight months — can also wreak havoc on a writer’s schedule. “You’re not being paid by the studio for five months of the year,” said Conrad, “but that’s not enough time to take on another show.”

JEENAH MOON/THE NEW YORK TIMES Rob Long, once a writer and an executive producer of “Cheers,” has had to adjust to shorter seasons and unpredictable schedules.