Streaming Services and the Arms Race for TV Writers

We seem to be living in a golden age of television thanks to streaming services, and The writers behind some of our favourite shows are getting well rewarded for it. Fast Company looked at how Netflix kickstarted “a $1 billion arms race” for TV writing talent. With Apple stepping into the field, and spending serious cash on the likes of Oprah, the fees look like they are only going to go one way.
In the last 18 months there have been so many jaw-dropping deals with the people who dream up TV shows–and the numbers for those deals so staggeringly high–that reports of another TV writer getting piles of cash thrown at him or her by a network, studio, or streaming company has become almost numbingly de rigueur. The starting gun that set off this phenomenon can be traced back to Netflix’s announcement in the summer of 2017 that it was poaching Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal creator Shonda Rhimes from her longtime home at ABC in a deal worth $150 million.