The Writers Guild of America is edging towards a mass walk-out that would see movies dozens of major TV shows stopping production for months - or even being canceled.

Shorter TV seasons, fewer reruns and smaller numbers of movies being commissioned are squeezing writers' wallets - which is leading to unrest.

All of this means another strike, like the one that dragged TV and movies to a standstill in 2007, may occur.

Picket fence: Strikers are seen during the 2007-08 Hollywood writers' strike, which affected film and TV production. A new strike may be on the way due to diminished earnings

Streaming out: More streaming services means fewer repeats - affecting the residual payment writers get when something they have written is shown again

'No one on the board or committee wants a strike,' Chris Keyser, co-chairman of the negotiating committee of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), told the LA Times.

'Unfortunately, the only way to be treated reasonably is to bring to bear the power of labor.'

The WGA is currently divided in half by the choice, according to Tim O'Donnell, a TV writer-producer and director and a former member of the WGA West board and negotiating committee.

'The more experienced writers - who lived through the [2007-8] strike - are very skeptical about doing that again,' he said.

'Writers who have come into the guild and business since then look at the needs that writers have and say, "If we can't get this, we ought to strike."'

The problems writers are experiencing are an unfortunate offshoot of what some are calling 'the Golden Age of Television,' and the rise of streaming services.

Many network shows, such as The Blacklist and The Big Bang Theory, continue to commission seasons of 20 or more episodes.

But streaming networks like Netflix and Amazon tend to follow the HBO model of having 10-15 episode seasons, with shorter, less meandering seasons that are more likely to pull in accolades.

Even some network shows have followed this model, such as Homeland, with its 12-episode years, and The Walking Dead, which has 16 episodes per season.

No game: Shows like Game of Thrones - which has 10-episode seasons - are now common. But as writers often can't work for two shows at once, they write fewer scripts, making less cash

There are also fewer reruns in an age of easily accessible streamed media, which is eating into the residual payments writers get when an episode they scripted is aired again.

And film studios, spooked by falling DVD and Blu-Ray sales, and seeing cable usage dropping in favor of streaming, are also commissioning fewer films.

That means fewer opportunities for writers to make money - which means terms need to be renegotiated, the WGA says.

The strike would affect all live-action scripted shows - which includes not just dramas and comedies, but also late-night talk shows that rely on writers for the opening monologues and skits.

But it wouldn't affect news shows, reality or competition shows like The Voice.

It might also not affect some animated comedies - which don't have to hire WGA members.

South Park aired an episode parodying the 2007-08 strike in the middle of the union action because the show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, aren't in the WGA.

However, The Simpsons and King of the Hill both stopped production for the strike.

Cartoon heroes? Animated shows don't have to hire WGA members, so South Park was able to continue through the writers' strike - even airing this episode, which parodied the action

The last strike went on for 100 days, and caused chaos in Hollywood, costing the entertainment industry an estimated $500 million, and hitting the LA economy for as much as $2.1 billion.

It was kicked off in protest at the low pay of writers relative to the money made by Hollywood - and in particular the lack of money being paid to writers when their works were streamed online.

The film industry was able to turn to older scripts that had been bought in but never actually produced in order to keep its machine turning.

But television was harder hit.

The late night talk shows stopped production, although Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno later started up their shows again minus their writers, and David Letterman negotiated a separate deal with the WGA.

And many series that were still being written at the time suffered shortened seasons, including Breaking Bad, CSI, Gossip Girl and Boston Legal.

Other shows, which had been partly produced but not yet aired - including 24, Battlestar Galactica and Damages - were postponed and aired later.

While the strike was successful, the damage done to some of those in related industries - such as the technicians and crewmembers - was severe.

'It was sleepless nights trying to figure out how to come up with rent every month and how to feed the kids,' Jon Salzman, a TV gaffer and electrician, told the LA Times.

'It takes many months after you start working again to get back to your nose being above water.'