There is mixed opinion about how damaging the strikes that paralyzed the entertainment industry in 2023 were.
Hollywood CRISIS: Biggest Writers' and Actors' Strike Since 1960 Could Cost $4 Billion
Earlier this week, the UCLA Anderson Forecast, which has regularly reported an economic forecast for the country and the state of California since 1952, estimated, based on preliminary data, that the strikes would result in losses of just $1.4 billion. “The impact on both the Los Angeles and California economies was relatively small in aggregate, even though it was large and difficult for some individually,” a statement accompanying the findings said.
These figures are a dramatic exception to the oft-cited figures of $3 billion to $6 billion attributed to the Milken Institute that have been cited since the end of the two strikes last year.
The smaller estimates, from Jerry Nickelsburg, the UCLA economist who wrote the forecast, are said to more accurately reflect the restructuring of the film and television industry in recent years, which has led to increased consolidation, declining content production and downward trends that existed before the strikes.
