by As the strike continues, soap opera actors and some other daytime TV workers will be “legally bound to fulfill the obligations” of their jobs due to their Netcode contracts
Hollywood may be mostly closed, but your favorite soap operas stick around…for now.
With the Screen Actors Guild officially going on strike Thursday, television viewers can expect a change in their favorite show. But that may not necessarily be the case for daytime soap operas, unscripted reality television, game shows, and news programs, which operate under a different contract.
While daytime actors are part of SAG-AFTRA – the union made up of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists – they will continue to work during the strike, as they are employed under the National Code of Fair Practice of SAG-AFTRA. for Network Television Broadcasting, also known as the network code or netcode.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, the Netcode covers unscripted and non-primetime shows, including soap operas. Some of the programs with contracts under the code include General Hospital, Days of our lives, The young and the restless And The bald and the handsome. Their contracts run through July 2024.
Related: Hollywood actors go on strike after unanimous vote: ‘Let us have no more alternative’
Until then, all four soaps can remain in production for the foreseeable future and have already found creative ways to circumvent the ongoing Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, such as enlisting non-WGA writers.
Because soap operas are taped weeks to months in advance, the programs have stored scripts that have been able to handle the effects of the writers’ strike.
In the meantime, many streaming services will continue to pump out content, but they will no longer be able to air new episodes of scripted content once the episodes that have already been filmed run out. (The actors on Peacock’s Day of our lives are under the Netcode contract and show movies further ahead than the other three daytime soaps, so the WGA strike probably won’t affect production for the next few months.)
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Related: Jamie Lee Curtis, Jeremy Renner, Matt Damon among actors to show support for impending strike: ‘Necessary change’
Following the strike news of ThursdayGeneral Hospital star Nancy Lee Grahn shared in an Instagram post that she expressed solidarity with the actors who are part of SAG-AFTRA.
“As most of you must know by now, all SAG-AFTRA actors are now on strike,” she captioned a video of SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher giving an impassioned speech about the strike. “What you may not know is that actors are members of SAG-AFTRA during the day, but work under a different contract called Netcode.”
She continued: “While we strongly support our union and their determined efforts for fair and equitable working conditions, we are legally bound to fulfill the obligations of our contract. We will continue the duration of this strike while united with our union .”
Related: Fran Drescher Says Actors Are ‘Victimized’ By ‘Greedy Entity’ In Fiery Hollywood Strike Speech
SAG-AFTRA voted unanimously for a strike on Thursday after contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers could not be reached.
The union succeeds the Writers Guild of America, which went on strike in May. The last time both unions went on strike simultaneously was in 1960, when SAG was led by future US President Ronald Reagan.
In a press conference, Drescher and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator of SAG-AFTRA, said the studios “left us with no choice” but to strike.
Drescher said in her speech that “the whole business model has changed because of streaming, digital, AI”. She added: “This is a really big deal and it weighed heavily on us. At some point you have to say, ‘No, we can’t take it anymore.'”
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“The mold is out…. We demand respect,” she continued. “You share the wealth, because you cannot exist without us.”
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