24/06/2025
Published in
The Conversation
Ruth Gutiérrez Delgado
Professor of Scriptwriting, Epistemology and Audiovisual Poetics, University of Navarra
Isadora García Avis
Lecturer of Audiovisual Narrative, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya
Pablo Castrillo Maortua
Professor of the department of Culture and Audiovisual Communication, University of Navarra, University of Navarra, Spain.
The 2023 strike organized by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) highlighted the enormous precariousness of the audiovisual sector and the complexity of solutions in a context of industry transformation. Many of the problems were long-standing. However, after the settlement of streaming platforms, the status quo for screenwriters had continued to worsen. In addition to the new working conditions imposed, which made their work unprotected, another guest was added: generative AI.
This ambiguous device for large-scale "foolproof" productivity looms as an untamed threat, especially affecting professions in creative, artistic and intellectual fields.
Integration, overcoming, "reasonable" use? Far from self-deception, screenwriters fear being replaced, even if some current proposals bet on "embracing" AI. However, that is only one of the most problematic challenges facing "the creative industries", including the Spanish one.
A new and still changing landscape
A decade after the arrival of streaming platforms in Spain, not everything is uncertain. For example, groups such as Atresmedia and Movistar Plus+ have taken the pulse of the international giants and have become more competitive by creating their own on-demand or subscription services. work standards have also been modified.
In the world of series, the mythical struggle between screenwriters and producers over the creative control of the story has favored the incorporation of the figure of the showrunner, who plays both roles. However, not all scriptwriters are producers, and not all producers are scriptwriters. The presence of the showrunner in the Spanish market is still limited. Ironically, now Showrunner is also the name of a platform that generates content made entirely by AI.
The possibilities of these channels have also been interpreted timidly: the desired global reach, the possibility of accessing a diverse audience or the ability to develop more complex narratives, committed to unconventional themes and riskier styles, constituted the golden promise of the new industry.
In contrast to this idealized framework , the real challenges and demands of Spanish soil have left Spanish screenwriters with many unknowns. To answer each of them, we conducted a survey of screenwriters affiliated to ALMA (the Spanish screenwriters' union representing more than 800 screenwriters, both film and TV). These are some of the main conclusions drawn from the study that we have published in the Journal of Screenwriting.
The Spanish scenario: lame and one-eyed
With the arrival of streaming platforms in Spain, the world of television writing was full of hopes of an unprecedented increase in audiovisual production. Everything seemed to augur that the more content, the more work, the higher the pay and the better the visibility.
However, the correlation has not been as direct or as logical. For example, although platforms launched 186 original fiction series in Europe in 2022, this represented less than 3% of the total Issue of hours produced, since, in general, these companies "do not invest in long-running series".
In the Spanish case, this is ambivalent news, since Spain is the second European country in TV fiction Issue commissioned by platforms, with 110 series produced between 2015 and 2022, only behind the United Kingdom, with 122. However, as the 2025report of the European Audiovisual Observatory highlights, it is still not very significant and, therefore, there is competition to attract more investment from platforms.
The initial euphoria has turned to suspicion or disappointment in the face of the overwhelming forcefulness of two factors that determine this new scenario: meager salaries, on the one hand, and the general lack of "time", on the other. According to the perceptions of some respondents, this binomial has a negative impact on the quality of the stories and, at the same time, has also led to a fever for accumulating jobs, naturally feeding labor inbreeding.
The Spanish market has not been easy so far either. Many of those surveyed agreed on the problems caused by the lack of communication in the traditional networks. Their hierarchical model , where the scriptwriter is subordinated to the decisions of producers and networks, slows down the creative process, generating contradictions and diluting responsibilities.
In contrast, when working with streaming platforms, some of the scriptwriters have perceived greater fluidity in communication and more personalized attention . This fluidity is not total, some of them point out, taking into account that these platforms are based outside Spain, which, in turn, can hinder the approval process.
But, de facto, an improvement in the communicative relationship implies the inclusion of the scriptwriter in the decision-making team, and also implies greater control over the story, although not necessarily over its intellectual property. On this point, they stress the differences between the legislative policies of the United States and those of Spain, which are more protective because they are under the European framework .
The chimera of creative freedom
All that glitters is not gold. Although the consolidation of the streaming sector suggests a paradigm shift, apparently more favorable to the screenwriter, it is not Exempt falling into certain traps.
For example, with large instructions of data accumulated from the Username experience, platforms can make creative decisions based on the habits of their audience. With that competitive condition up their sleeves, scriptwriters' creativity is stifled by "financialdiscipline " and algorithmic cues.
In addition to excessive subjection to marketing, another factor that strangles creative freedom is the ideological treatment of content (although this last point also conditions the development of projects for traditional television channels).
As far as the quality of the stories is concerned, programs of study are beginning to emerge on how to stimulate certain psychological responses in "consumers". In these cases, it is not only a matter of taking advantage of the digital trail of the naïve series viewer, but of studying the emotional responses in groups of people to reproduce the paths of emotion in the plots of a fiction. goal: to generate greater engagementby controlling the stimulus and people's responses from the experimental sciences.
Naturally, every good playwright has always sought to excite his audience. Knowing them well is part of the art of storytelling. However, in this new work scenario, the passion for storytelling could end up being replaced by persuasion. Nor should it be forgotten that the " goalaudience" has been diluted into a global and fragmentary audience.
Will rhetoric pull the cart of poetics and algorithms, of the cathartic factor? Perhaps, if they are not curbed a bit. Equating the quality of a story with the success of the emotional response is certainly problematic and disturbing. In addition to acting as an immediate lure for other agents interested in stimulating consumption, it is a fascinating conflict to tell a new story.