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Posted: 2023-05-05T16:41:44Z | Updated: 2023-05-05T17:16:37Z

Several major companies in Hollywood this week touted major profits and a surge in subscribers to their streaming services, at the same time thousands of film and TV writers are on strike , asking for their share of those profits.

On Friday, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav announced that the companys streaming division, including HBO Max (soon known as Max), made $50 million in profits during the first quarter of 2023. In addition, the company picked up about 1.5 million new streaming subscribers since the end of 2022, Zaslav said on a call reporting the companys quarterly earnings .

In Apples quarterly earnings announcement Thursday, company executives reported $20.9 billion in revenue for its services division, which they said was an all-time high for the company . The services division includes Apple TV+, the companys streaming service, which features acclaimed shows like Severance and Ted Lasso, and movies like CODA, which won the Oscar for Best Picture last year.

That same day, Paramount released its earnings report , highlighting the 4.1 million new subscribers to Paramount+, the companys streaming service, since the end of 2022. While the overall company is operating at a loss, the earnings report touted a 50% increase in subscription revenue over the past year, which includes Paramount+.

Film and TV writers write the shows and movies that draw viewers to these streaming services. The growing gap between the entertainment companies and their CEOs massive paychecks and those of the writers is at the heart of why the 11,500 film and TV writers in the Writers Guild of America, West and East, have been on strike since Tuesday . (HuffPosts unionized staff are also members of the WGAE.)