Guild data showed staff writer and story editor posts falling by 46 per cent in a single season, and the trade is still working out how new writers are meant to start

Entry-Level Jobs in Television Writing

Television writing has traditionally been learned on the job. A newcomer is hired at the lowest rank in a writers’ room, contributes ideas, drafts scenes under supervision, watches how episodes are broken and produced, and over several seasons rises through a sequence of titles. It is an apprenticeship in all but name.

That system depends on there being bottom-rung jobs to be hired into. The evidence of the past two years is that those are the jobs that have gone fastest.

The Data

In 2025 the Writers Guild released an analysis of television employment by level. The Hollywood Reporter’s account set out the losses for the 2023-24 season compared with the one before.

It reported that lower-level writers, meaning staff writers, story editors and executive story editors, had 378 fewer jobs, a fall of 46 per cent. Mid-level positions, from co-producer to consulting or supervising producer, declined by 299, or 42 per cent.

Across all levels there were 1,819 television writing jobs that season, 42 per cent fewer than the season before.

So the lowest ranks lost proportionately more than the average. A separate summary of the same data noted that the number of episodic series, at 228, was the lowest in five years.

That season included the 2023 strike. But the guild’s later annual figures, reported in August this year, show television employment in calendar 2025 still more than a third below its 2022 level. The entry-level problem did not resolve itself when work resumed.

Why the Bottom Went First

Several changes in how series are made bear on this.

Orders are shorter. A broadcast season of twenty-two episodes needed a large staff working most of the year. A streaming season of eight needs fewer people for fewer weeks.

Rooms are smaller. The so-called mini-room, in which a handful of writers develop a season before it is commissioned, became common. When a show has only a few places, they tend to go to experienced writers who can deliver scripts with little supervision.

Writing and production have been separated. On many streaming series the scripts are finished before filming starts, and the writers are released. A junior writer no longer stays on to see episodes produced, which was where much of the training took place.

And there are simply fewer series.

Each of these, on its own, would reduce demand for junior writers. Together they have removed a large share of the positions through which people entered.

What the 2023 Strike Sought

These issues were central to the 2023 dispute. The guild asked for minimum staffing levels and guaranteed periods of employment. The public record of the strike notes that the studios characterised the demand as requiring shows to be staffed with a set number of writers for a set time whether needed or not.

The eventual agreement included provisions on room size and duration for certain series. Whether those have been enough to preserve entry-level work is, on the figures above, open to doubt.

The Companies’ View

The opposing position is not unreasonable and should be set out.

A showrunner with a clear vision and a short season may not need a large room. Requiring one adds cost without, from the company’s standpoint, improving the series. Some celebrated shows have been written by one or two people.

A company is in business to make programmes, not to operate a training scheme for a profession. If the old staffing levels were a by-product of long broadcast seasons, their decline reflects a change in the product.

And costs are under pressure throughout the industry. Every position has to be justified.

Why It Is Still a Problem

The difficulty is one of time horizons. No single series needs to train a future showrunner. The industry as a whole does. The people running shows today learned by spending years on staff. If that path closes, there will be fewer people qualified to run shows a decade from now.

This is a classic case in which what is sensible for each firm is damaging for all of them together. It is also the kind of problem a union agreement is well suited to address, since it binds every employer equally.

What Is Being Done

The guild runs programmes aimed at newer members. Its website lists, among recent features, a piece dated 18 September titled What I Learned in TV Staff Writer Boot Camp. We have seen only the title, but it indicates an organised effort to prepare writers for a first staff job.

Studios and networks operate their own fellowships and writing programmes, which place a small number of new writers each year.

These help individuals. They do not create jobs. A well-prepared candidate still needs a room with a vacancy.

Advice for New Writers

For someone trying to start, the data suggest some adjustments to the traditional route.

The assistant path remains important. Working as a writers’ assistant or script coordinator puts a person in the room and in line for a freelance episode.

Original material matters more than it did. With fewer staff jobs, a writer who can show a finished pilot or feature that people want to read has something to offer beyond a willingness to learn.

Film is a parallel route. The feature side has contracted less than television.

And persistence has to be matched with realism. The guild itself has said that careers were always difficult to enter and sustain, and that the contraction has made them more so.

What Would Change the Picture

More series. Longer seasons. Contract terms that tie junior positions to the size of an order. Or a return to keeping writers on through production. Any of these would rebuild the lower rungs. None looks imminent.

This article reports guild data as published in the trade press and notes where information is limited. The London Prat approaches the subject in its own way in its British satirical news on entry-level jobs in television and its London satirical news about writers’ rooms. Bohiney Magazine covers the American industry.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/