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Deal or no deal? TV and movie strike looks as if it could be over
Alex Strachan, Canwest News Service
Published: Sunday, February 03, 2008
Tired of reruns? The TV season may be about to be rebooted.

Striking writers have reached a preliminary agreement with the major film studios and U.S. broadcast networks, several Los Angeles area media outlets reported over the weekend.
There has been no official announcement. Both sides have imposed a media blackout.

Several Los Angeles area radio stations reported a breakthrough in the negotiations late Saturday night, however. The Los Angeles Times reported in its Sunday editions that a deal is all but done, and an agreement could be signed as early as this Friday.

If ratified, the agreement means the show will go on at this year's Oscars. The Feb. 24 Academy Awards telecast was in jeopardy after striking writers announced they would picket the ceremony. Last month's Golden Globes ceremony was cancelled after nominated actors and scheduled presenters refused to cross writers' picket lines and boycotted the event.

An official settlement means new episodes of such popular TV programs as House, Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives could be back as soon as late March. Production on a new episode of a sitcom or drama can take up to six weeks. Network insiders have said privately that a resolution now will allow time for six new episodes to be made of such series as CSI and Law & Order, enough to finish out a shortened 2007-'08 season.

The latest round of negotiations between the Writers Guild of America, which represents 10,500 film and TV writers, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents such major media companies as NBC-Universal, Viacom/CBS, Warner Bros. Studios, Disney/ABC and 20th Century Fox, were jumpstarted after the Directors Guild of America reached an agreement on Jan. 17 after just five days of negotiations.

The directors' agreement put pressure on both sides to reach a quick settlement in a dispute that has dragged on for three months, with no end in sight.

The directors' contract is believed to have established a template for the writers' tentative agreement. Writers put down their pens on Nov. 5 over such issues as fair compensation for online video downloads and live streaming from the Internet. The tentative agreement is said to resolve key sticking points that were holding up a settlement.

The three-month dispute has cost the Hollywood film and TV industry an estimated $500 million in lost financial revenue. The strike caused a ripple effect that curtailed U.S.-_base_d movie and TV production in Canada and resulted in widespread layoffs to below-the-line workers such as caterers, set decorators, make-up artists, electricians, cameramen and drivers.
A quick settlement will mean the 2008-'09 fall TV season can go ahead as originally planned. There will be fewer pilot episodes made of new series, however.

Pilot season, in which roughly 100 new series vie for 35 slots on the fall schedule, is traditionally staged in March and April. The U.S. networks unveil their fall schedules to advertisers in May, and the Canadian networks follow suit in June.
The media blackout remains in effect, and the writers are still officially on strike. The Los Angeles Times reported that the Writers Guild's lead negotiators will brief the union's negotiating committee and board of directors on Monday (Feb. 4), however, with contract language for the proposed agreement decided by the end of the week.

It will still take the union's members several days after that to ratify the agreement. The strike will likely be called off, however, if the union's leaders strongly endorse the deal, the Times reported.

Another major Hollywood union still has to negotiate an agreement before labour peace is assured, however. The Screen Actors Guild contract with Hollywood studios expires on June 30, and union leaders have expressed similar concerns to the writers in recent days. A settlement with the writers will probably provide a blueprint for the actors, however. Stay tuned.
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LA Radio Reporting Writers Strike Deal
By John Scott Lewinski February 02, 2008 | 7:19:33 PM

Categories: WGA Strike

Los Angeles radio stations are reporting that the Writers Guild of America has reached a preliminary agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

There's been no official announcement made yet by either side, and none is expected until next week.

As of this hour, there is still a writers strike. But, stay tuned.

_link_ to Article: http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/02/la-radio-report.html

Major Progress in Writers' Strike Talks
Deal, Which Could Come This Week, Would Restart Production of TV Shows

By Paul Farhi and Lisa de Moraes
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 3, 2008; Page A04

After weeks of stalled talks, negotiators in the entertainment writers' strike have suddenly made "substantial progress" in their discussions, people with knowledge of the talks said yesterday, raising hopes in Hollywood that a settlement could come as early as this week.

Representatives of the Writers Guild of America and the major movie studios and TV networks appear to have tentatively resolved the major issues that led the labor union's 10,500 members to walk out on Nov. 5, sources said.

Both sides have agreed to a media blackout regarding negotiations, and officials from the guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers declined to comment yesterday.

"No one will say it's done," a person with knowledge of the discussions said, but a "staggering amount" of progress was made Friday after nine hours of informal discussions in Los Angeles. The next step, the person said, is to get the results of the negotiation on paper. "Until it's on paper, no one is saying anything" publicly, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the no-comment agreement.

A settlement would restart production of TV dramas and sitcoms, which ground to a halt not long after writers on both coasts walked out 13 weeks ago. A quick resolution would enable the broadcast networks to wind up this disrupted TV season with at least some original fare. However, industry executives say that, even if a deal is struck in the next few days, it could take a few weeks for benched series to get going again.

With television production effectively shut down in Hollywood and in much of New York, the networks have filled their prime-time schedules with reruns and "reality" series, some of which had been ordered as part of the networks' strike contingency plans. Movie production has been less impaired.

A more immediate beneficiary of a quick settlement would be the Feb. 24 Academy Awards telecast. The Screen Actors Guild has said that its members will not attend the event if the writers are still on strike, a move that probably would reduce the Oscars to a glamour-less, celebrity-free event. That fate befell NBC's broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards last month and sent its ratings plunging.

Word of progress in the negotiations, including a report yesterday on the New York Times Web site, set off a flurry of optimistic e-mails in the entertainment industry. Although several people said a deal could be announced as soon as late yesterday, those hopes were quickly dashed. The two sides have yet to commit their agreement to writing.

A member of the guild who writes TV comedies sounded a skeptical note. "I'm hopeful but wary, as these types of early, optimistic rumors have been deliberately seeded by the [producers] in the past to artificially raise and then dash our hopes as a bargaining bludgeon," said the writer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Writers Guild's negotiating committee has scheduled a videoconference for tomorrow to discuss developments. Any settlement proposal would have to be ratified by the guild's members.

The negotiations got a boost on Friday, sources said, when Peter Chernin, the president of News Corp., returned from London and rejoined the talks. Chernin's company owns the 20th Century Fox movie studio and the Fox broadcast network, and he is one of the powerful moguls leading the discussions, along with Robert A. Iger, the chief executive of the Walt Disney Co., as well as Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS.

The studios walked away from negotiations on Dec. 7. But Chernin and Iger resumed informal talks with top Writers Guild officials on Jan. 22 after producers reached an agreement with the Directors Guild of America.
Writers have been seeking bigger fees, known as residuals, from the sale of home videos, and compensation from Internet downloads and streaming of TV programs and movies. The big stumbling block has been the precise formula for Internet residuals.

De Moraes reported from Los Angeles.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/02/AR2008020202390.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Official WGA announcement to striking writers:

On Tuesday, members of the Writers Guilds East and West voted by a 92.5% margin to lift the restraining order that was invoked on November 5th. The strike is over.

Writing can resume immediately. If you were employed when the strike began, you should plan to report to work on Wednesday. If you're not employed at an office or other work site, call or e-mail your employer that you are resuming work. If you have been told not to report to work or resume your services, we recommend that you still notify your employer in writing of your availability to do so. Questions concerning return-to-work issues should be directed to the WGAW legal department or the WGAE’s assistant executive director.

The decision to begin this strike was not taken lightly and was only made after no other reasonable alternative was possible. We are profoundly aware of the economic loss these fourteen weeks have created not only for our members but so many other colleagues who work in the television and motion picture industries. Nonetheless, with the establishment of the WGA jurisdiction over new media and residual formulas _base_d on distributor’s gross revenue (among other gains) we are confident that the results are a significant achievement not only for ourselves but the entire creative community, now and in the future.

We hope to build upon the extraordinary energy, ingenuity, and solidarity that were generated by your hard work during the strike.

Over the next weeks and months, we will be in touch with you to discuss and develop ways we can use our unprecedented unity to make our two guilds stronger and more effective than ever.

Now that the strike has ended, there remains the vote to ratify the new contract. Ballots and information on the new deal, both pro and con, will be mailed to you shortly. You will be able to return those ballots via mail or at a membership meeting to be held Monday, February 25th, 2008, at times and locations to be determined.

Thank you for making it possible. As ever, we are all in this together.

Best,

Patric M. Verrone
President, WGAW

Michael Winship
President, WGAE