Canada’s service sector still in catch-up mode post-strikes

Producers discuss the impact of last year’s production stoppages as part of Playback's Indie List 2024.

The 148-day Writers Guild of America (WGA) and 118-day Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strikes led to a months-long stoppage in service work in Hollywood North, with Canadian producers and unions still surveying the damage.

Crews in Vancouver were particularly impacted, according to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), which represents more than 34,000 film, TV and live event workers in Canada. B.C. and the Yukon’s IATSE Local 891 reported that gross wages came to about $4.6 million in August 2023, a month into the SAG-AFTRA strike. That number was a year-over-year decrease of 90% from the $48.7 million in gross wages earned in August 2022. The chapter represents more than 10,000 IATSE members.

Toronto’s IATSE Local 873 (the largest IATSE chapter in Ontario) reported gross wages of $5.5 million in August 2023, down from $49.9 million year-over-year.

On the producer front, Indie List 2024 sheds some light on the impact for companies such as Montreal-headquartered Muse Entertainment and Toronto’s Boat Rocker Media. Muse had a $145 million decrease in its service budget in 2023, from $218 million to $72.7 million year-over-year. Boat Rocker reported $75.3 million for 2023, compared to $104.4 million the prior year.

While production companies such as Toronto’s Neshama Entertainment felt the “chill,” they were able to lean into solutions around the stoppages. Neshama reported a slight decrease in Indie List 2024, dipping down to $54.2 million, compared to $61.1 million in 2023.

Suzanne Berger, VP, production at Neshama, tells Playback that, while the company’s higher-budget shows under WGA jurisdiction were put on hold, it was able to ride out the strikes because of the steady stream of lower-budget TV movies that it produces and sells to its L.A.-based distribution partner MarVista Entertainment, which has a minority stake in Neshama.

The prodco had a workaround for its Hallmark Channel series The Way Home, with pre-existing signed contracts for stars Andie MacDowell and Chyler Leigh. The company also worked with its broadcast partners to cast all-Canadian talent, which “spoke well of the Canadian actors community, that we were able to keep making some of our higher budget movies and not have a U.S. star,” says Berger.

Muse Entertainment president and CEO Aren Prupas says the industry is in catch-up mode. “It’s been a slow start to the year service production wise, at least in our home base here in Montreal.”

One of the Muse service works impacted by the strikes was the CBS comedy Ghosts (pictured). Its third season was greenlit in January 2023, but saw production delayed until the end of the year before premiering in February with a reduced episode count. The series received a 22-episode fourth season renewal in March, with production slated for summer.

While Muse was able to pivot and produce some projects without U.S. writing or acting talent, it found that engaging Canadian writers was also challenging as they were standing in solidarity with their U.S. counterparts. Prupas says the prodco was able to see through that period as service work represents less than 20% of its overall revenue.

Things are looking up on the service front, however, says Prupas. The company recently took a sales trip to L.A. and is starting to get some inbound calls, particularly for producing in Quebec.

Prupas speculates that the base rate of the province’s service production tax credit, which increased to 25% from 20% in the 2024- 25 budget, could be one reason. The foreign exchange rate could be another. He expects that if Canada’s dollar weakens any further, phones will be ringing “of the hook” from the U.S. and other foreign studios.

Foreign location and service (FLS) production has been a significant driver of the screen sector’s boom in the country. In 2022-23, FLS productions helped to drive Canada’s total production volume to an all-time high of $12.19 billion, contributing $6.86 billion and creating 137,770 jobs, according to the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) annual Profile report. The report covers April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023, ending just a few months before the strikes began, said the association.

The impact on the B.C. sector was “devastating,” says Vancouver prodco Brightlight Pictures founder and chairman Shawn Williamson, who estimates that roughly 90% of production was shut down in the province. Williamson says he’s noticed a decrease in the number of crews since the strikes ended, noting that it could become a national issue if workers decide that their skills are transferable to other, more stable industries.

Williamson says there were a number of shows that were greenlit and would have potentially filmed in the province, but never moved forward. There were also delays, curtailments and cancellations – all three in the case of the ABC title The Good Doctor, which Brightlight Pictures provides service work for. The show had its seventh season delayed, which was cut from 20 episodes to 10, before ABC announced it would be its final season.

“I don’t know if that was a direct result of the strike … it’s hard to say whether it would have gone to a subsequent season if it had continued uninterrupted,” says Williamson.

Alert: Missing Persons Unit, which Brightlight produces for Sony Pictures Television and airs on Fox, had just opened the writers’ room when the strike was called. It was also delayed.

Neshama’s Berger says the strikes compounded things for an industry already seeing contraction and jobs cuts. Foreign productions brought in $886.6 million in production volume to Ontario in 2023, compared to $1.95 billion in 2022, according to Ontario Creates.

“The chill that we felt up here as crews stopped working was a stark reminder of how much business is brought into this town from outside of Canada,” says Berger.

With the industry suffering a slowdown following the strikes, Williamson says the expectation in the market is that there will be a 20% to 25% reduction in overall production internationally, which will have an impact in Canada, particularly with foreign-owned projects.

“The strikes allowed the studios and the streamers and the networks to look at their overall development strategy … where they were making money and what was selling internationally and domestically, and then out of that, cancel shows or greenlight shows that may have been on the edge,” he says, adding that additional growth in the market will be “years down the road.”

This story first appeared in Playback‘s Spring 2024 issue

Image courtesy of Muse Entertainment