Hollywood studios and striking actors reached a deal late on Wednesday, all but ending one of the longest labor crises in the history of the

entertainment industry. The Union says the contract includes bonuses for

streaming as well as AI protections. Everybody is ecstatic and excited. This is what the union leaders are describing as historic as extraordinary.

I'm Hannah Rosen. This is Radio Atlantic.

Last week, the union representing Hollywood actors ended a month's long strike.

By all accounts, it was a complete victory for the actors, just as it was for striking Hollywood

writers weeks earlier.

Both SAG, that's the Screen Acters Guild and the WGA, Writers Guild of America,

got a lot of what they were asking for, especially more pay for screaming and protections from AI.

This was the first dual strike in Hollywood in over 60 years.

And historically, these big strikes tend to come at moments of major change in the

entertainment industry. In the 50s and 60s it was TV sets. In the 80s, video

cassettes and pay TV and then in the 2000s downloads of shows and movies. In each of these cases actors or

writers went on strike to earn their fair share. And now the big transition is

streaming. Netflix created this new model, movie studios and TV network scramble to replicate it,

and the streaming wars created an absurd amount of new shows.

But the writers and actors making them often earned far less

than they did in traditional distribution models. Now what does this mean for us, the viewers?

It means that the way we've gotten used

to being entertained, these infinite possibilities

on an ever increasing number of streaming services, that has got to change.

Because it doesn't work for the writers,

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