I thought I'd start a thread on the upcoming contract negotiations between the Writers Guild of America (WGA), Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). These negotiations are lining up to be rather contentious and potentially harmful if a strike is called by either or both guilds. The WGA contract expires this fall and the SAG contract expires next summer. Here's an article from the LA Times about how things are beginning to shape up.

Please note, the bolded section is my doing to augment the comment about SVU.

refresh my memory wasn't there a strike during the early years of svu? i don't remember which guild it was.



that's bad news for the mothership and ci, they don't even know if they are being renewed yet so they can't film eppys early can they?

Thanks for telling us Kat.... and could you please keep us posted....

We've had a couple of strikes in the last 30 years. 1988 was the big WGA strike that caused a lot of problems for everyone and actually changed the landscape of TV as a result. In late 2000 SAG went on strike for commerical actors, which didn't directly affect the feature/tv world, but it was a harbinger for the 2001 WGA/SAG contract negotiations that caused everyone to start stockpiling scripts. And when there was no strike, work was slow because of all the stockpiling so we had a de facto strike that summer/fall anyway.

I'm hoping that this batch of negotiations don't turn too ugly, but with everyone trying to grab at the same pile of money, that needs to be stretched more and more each year, I don't know if contentiousness can be avoided.

As I hear/read more, I'll definitely share with everyone.

btw - back in 2000/2002 I had posted a bunch of articles on that potential strike. If anyone wants to read them, you can pop on over here:

http://p075.ezboard.com/DICK-Investigation...nsextradornaire

The threads are labeled "WGA/SAG Articles" and have a couple for each week/month.

thank you for sharing the link katrose

Thanks Kat. I shure hope that the they don't go on strike. Dose any one know when the season 9 parmear is?

I'm assuming you're asking when Season 9 will premiere. If so, it's usually mid-September. We'll know the exact date as we get through the summer.

I hope that this whole mess can be worked out. Strikes don't just effect the companies but everyone and everything directly linked to them. I hope this doesn't directly effect the actors themselves. I'm sure it won't bet you never really know.

This was in today's LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/...=la-home-center

From the Los Angeles Times
ENTERTAINMENT
No happy ending in sight
The chances of a strike increase as contract negotiations between Hollywood writers and executives break down.
By Richard Verrier
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 6, 2007

Halloween is looking scarier than ever for Hollywood.

Studio executives and representatives of the Writers Guild of America abruptly ended talks Friday amid growing pessimism that they would be able to reach an agreement before the union's contract expires at month's end.

Although the two sides have agreed to meet again Tuesday, the lack of tangible progress in on-and-off-negotiations since July has deepened fears that writers will go on strike as early as this fall.

"There's no question there's a lot of anxiety, not just among writers but also among network and film executives," said Los Angeles entertainment attorney Daniel H. Black, partner at Greenberg Traurig. "Do you greenlight a movie? How long is the shooting going to be? Do we have to lay off employees? There are a lot of moving pieces here."

A strike could cause upheaval in the entertainment industry that drives much of Los Angeles' economy. Writers last struck in 1988 for 22 weeks and cost the industry an estimated $500 million.

With much at stake and a contract deadline looming, many in Hollywood had hoped that talks would begin in earnest this week. Instead, meetings on Thursday and Friday only yielded more acrimony, with studio executives accusing their guild counterparts of refusing to engage in serious discussions.

"This is the most frustrating and futile attempt at bargaining that anyone on the negotiating team has encountered," said J. Nicholas Counter III, the studios' chief negotiator and president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. "We are farther apart today than when we started and the only outcome we see is disaster engineered by the present leadership of the WGA."

Guild leaders say it is the producers, and not they, who have been unwilling to engage. Writers are seeking a larger share of DVD revenue; an extension of guild pay and benefits to reality TV programs; and pay for work distributed via the Internet.

Producers argue that online entertainment is too new to establish pay formulas now and want more flexibility to promote their shows online. Citing rising marketing and production costs, they are calling for revamping the decades-old system of residual payments -- fees talent receive beyond the initial showing of their shows or films. Studios propose paying residuals only after they've recouped their costs.

That's a deeply unpopular proposal among the union's nearly 12,000-plus members.

"While the WGA remains determined to make a fair deal, at this stage of the negotiations the AMPTP is still stuck on its rollback proposals, including profit-based residuals," a statement from several guild writers said. "Our members will not stand for that. The entertainment industry is successful and growing like never before. Writers, whose creativity is at the heart of that success and growth, are committed to sharing in it."

The statement came from writers including Neal Baer ("Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"), Bill Condon ("Dreamgirls"), Shawn Ryan ("The Shield") and John Bowman ("Saturday Night Live").

Bowman, the committee chairman, did not attend Friday's meeting because he was working on an upcoming TV show, a guild official said.

During Friday's meeting at the alliance's headquarters in Encino, Counter reiterated concerns that producers were forced to make residual payments on unprofitable movies and TV shows. Labor relations executives took turns arguing the need to change rules that limit their ability to promote TV shows online to draw younger audiences.

After the presentation, Carol Lombardini, the alliance's executive vice president, asked David Young, executive director of the Writers Guild of America, West, if he had any questions.

"No," he said.

Lombardini then discussed some of the guild's other proposals.

After about an hour, Young suggested the parties take a break. By noon, however, guild officials told their counterparts they would not return to the bargaining table until Tuesday, making some executives livid.

"There is absolutely no dialogue going on," said one executive involved in the talks who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak for the studios. "I'm more and more convinced than ever that they've made up their mind to strike."

Bracing for possible strikes by writers and actors, networks and studios have accelerated production of various movies, TV shows and pilots, stockpiled scripts and ordered up more reality TV shows, game shows and new programs that they could run during a strike.

Writers are scrambling to complete scripts by Oct. 31 and make sure they have enough money to cover mortgage payments and other living expenses.

richard.verrier@latimes.com

Thanks for keeping us posted on what is going on...

Thanks for the info KatRose!

Thanks Katrose.

Thanks for the info Kat. I hope everything works out.

So we may be subjected to even more reality shows.

Daily Variety
October 12, 2007

IATSE chief blasts WGA
Short says he's prepared to take legal action
By DAVE MCNARY

With the Writers Guild of America talking strike, the WGA's now on a collision course with the Intl. Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

In a missive sent Thursday, IATSE topper Thomas Short blasted the guild over its plan to bar WGA members from penning animated features if there's a strike. Short, who's tangled with the guild in the past, pledged he'll see the WGA -- and its leaders -- in court since feature animation writing is IATSE's turf.

"If the WGAW follows through with the threat, the IATSE is prepared to take legal action against the individuals and institutions involved," Short said in the letter to WGA West president Patric Verrone.

Short's vituperative response referred to the writers union as "the house of hate commonly known as the Writers Guild of America West."

Verrone was unapologetic in response, asserting that the guild's simply trying to protect its own members by barring them from writing during a strike.

"Members of the Writers Guild write the overwhelming majority of animated feature films," he said in a statement. "We will not allow the employers to take advantage of our writers to produce this work during a strike. Honoring picket lines is a fundamental trade union principle."

Short's blast came with the WGA winding up its ninth day of face-to-face bargaining with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers. Talks recessed in mid-afternoon with both sides agreeing to meet again Tuesday and AMPTP president Nick Counter accusing the WGA of duplicity while admitting that negotiations are going nowhere fast.

"The two sides are fundamentally apart as to what data is truly relevant to the negotiations dealing with productions covered by the WGA agreement and produced by signatory production companies," he said. "Just as in 2004, the guild has raised a number of red herrings and irrelevant financial information. We believe they should focus on trying to reach an agreement with the production companies represented at the bargaining table."

The WGA's end-of-the-day response was equally snarky, accusing the companies of stalling.

"As we move toward our contract expiration on Oct. 31, we look forward to a serious discussion with the companies," the guild said. "There are a number of important issues that must be dealt with, including homevideo, new media and jurisdiction. So far the AMPTP has not been serious."

With no progress reported at the bargaining table, and the guild in the midst of taking a strike authorization vote, pessimism's growing that the WGA will strike soon after the Oct. 31 contract expiration.

And the WGA's strike rules, posted Thursday on its website, declare that writers can't work or negotiate for animated features -- even though that realm is not under WGA jurisdiction. Nearly all feature animation writing is performed under contracts covered by the Animation Guild, which operates as Local 839 of IATSE.

"Writers are advised to consult with staff at the guild's strike headquarters to determine the extent to which animation writing is permitted or prohibited before performing any services in order to avoid possible disciplinary action," the WGA regulation notes. "Members should assume that projects combining live action and animation and live action-based processes, such as motion capture, are covered by this rule."

The strike rules don't address whether guild members can perform work if they've previously signed Animation Guild deals. Discipline for violation of the strike rules can include expulsion, suspension, fines and censure.

Short noted in the letter that the Animation Guild has represented animation writers for 55 years. "I consider it outrageous for the WGAW to consider violating trade union principles by taking action against individuals performing services under the jurisdiction of another union," he said.

Short took issue with the WGA late last year over its strategy of delaying contract talks with studios and nets, asserting that a similar approach in 2001 -- when the WGA negotiated past the contract deadline -- caused a sharp dropoff or "de facto" strike in the subsequent months. WGA leaders have derided the impact of stockpiling, but IATSE (which has over 100,000 below-the-line members) noted Thursday that production has ramped up in recent months through extra episodes of series and a larger-than-usual number of features.

Relations between the two unions have been dismal for many years, with hostilities over such issues as which should have jurisdiction over writers on reality shows and animation. At one point last year, WGA West exec David Young accused Short of being a shill for the companies and using strikebreaking tactics to prevent the WGA from organizing the CW reality skein "America's Next Top Model."

The WGA's other strike rules include bans on any guild-covered work in features and TV and prohibit any writing for new media including Internet and cell phones -- even though it's not yet certain whether the WGA has jurisdiction in that area. Showrunners on TV series will be prohibited from any writing but may be allowed to perform nonwriting services if cleared with the WGA.

Members are also being told that they can't deliver any material to a struck company or sign or deliver documents relating to writing assignments. And they must honor guild picket lines, perform assigned strike support duties and report strike-breaking activity.

The rules also assert that nonmembers who perform banned work during a strike will be barred from joining the WGA. The guild noted that it can't discipline nonmembers for "strikebreaking and/or scab writing."

"This policy has been strictly enforced in the past and has resulted in convincing many would-be strikebreakers to refrain from seriously harming the guild and its members during a strike," it added.

The last WGA strike took place in 1988 and lasted 22 weeks.

Daily Variety
October 12, 2007

Industry perplexed as strike looms
Labor strife scrambles scenarios
By DAVE MCNARYMidnight on Nov. 1 marks the entertainment industry's zero hour, the moment when the Writers Guild contract expires, and scribes, studios and the rest of Hollywood are in limbo.
But no one can tell you with any kind of certainty what exactly will happen then.

All of the saber rattling, lack of progress at the negotiating table and studio scrambling is convincing enough that there will be a strike on that date -- which was not viewed as a very real possibility until a few weeks ago.

But that is just one outcome, as several other scenarios, equally unpredictable, have been floating around recently.

The writers strike on Nov. 1 (or thereabouts)

Simply put, writing would stop.

Features headed for the starting gate would have to rely on directors and producers to revise scripts -- but since so many pics have been greenlit, it's possible a few of the lower-cost projects may get shelved if they don't contain pay-or-play provisions for actors.

Damage could be heavy in the TV arena. Though execs have insisted they've always been ready for an early strike, shows that haven't been bringing in high ratings could be forced to halt production before being able to fill the initial order of 13 episodes -- precluding international revenues.

Those who do write would face public approbation. The WGA recently drafted strike rules for its members, even threatening sanctions against those who work in feature animation and new-media platforms. That's a particularly aggressive stance, since both areas aren't yet covered by the guild.

Count on the WGA to launch an active campaign once it strikes. WGA West exec director David Young is a veteran of organizing hotel and garment workers, so the guild probably will hold plenty of pickets, rallies and demonstrations -- all aimed at embarrassing studios, networks and producers.

Not striking early would also be humbling to the WGA leaders, now that they've managed to convince the town they will pull the plug soon. "It would be an admission that they really don't have enough clout to scare the companies into giving them a better deal," one producer notes.

Expect the DGA negotiations to begin right away should the writers strike in early November. One rumor circulating recently is that the directors won't start negotiations until the AMPTP pulls its proposal to revamp residuals off the table. That's a particularly hard-line position for the DGA.

Companies lock out the writers on Nov. 1 (or thereabouts)

It sounds harsh. Studios and networks would no longer employ writers. They invoke "force majeure" clauses to dump poorly performing producers with term deals and even clean out executive suites.

The idea has gained some traction in recent weeks, even if it is a tactic that has not been employed in Hollywood in recent memory.

This scenario is rated a longshot, since it would be a potential PR nightmare.

"You are almost playing into the WGA's hands by allowing them to paint you as being interested in nothing but the bottom line," one agent notes.

It would be especially trying for the more moderate among the companies.

"That's a very high price to pay for the benefits of getting rid of people that you don't like," one observer notes. Studio execs often say they'd like to produce fewer titles anyway, and this would certainly be a way to achieve that.

The WGA and AMPTP settle on Halloween.

This scenario's rated a longshot, too. The venomous rhetoric has taken a toll; voices of moderation don't seem to be making any kind of impression on leaders.

Still, the WGA and AMPTP eventually will have to make a deal. "Right now, they're acting as if they're negotiating a divorce, even though they have a pre-nup," one producer notes.

One development that could spur a settlement would be if the WGA's strike authorization vote isn't a particularly impressive figure when it's revealed on Oct. 19. Should the "yes" vote be less than 75%, it would indicate guild members -- even unemployed ones -- are having second thoughts about the hardline path taken by their leaders.

Perhaps it's only wishful thinking, but speculation has emerged that there may be a white knight out on the horizon that both sides could agree on.

"There's so much hostility at this point that the only way you can resolve it is by getting someone who's an elder statesman and respected by both sides to mediate," one leading agent mused.

Names that have been tossed around include former Warner Bros. chief Bob Daly, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

The thinking goes that Daly has got the temperament for the task; the Governator has the flair for the grand gesture; and Villaraigosa's record as a union supporter, who at the same time has the motivation to keep Hollywood humming, may make him the most palatable candidate.

Writers keep working under an expired contract.

Hollywood wouldn't feel much different in November and December than it has over the past few months: In other words, lots of anxiety.

Writers would be allowed to continue to work under the terms and conditions of the expired contact, but there would still be the possibility of a Screen Actors Guild strike when its contract expires on June 30. In fact, there's a school of thought that the WGA can actually create more damage by waiting until the spring -- once the networks have approved pilots for new shows. And a spring strike would be designed to give SAG more leverage at the bargaining table if it hasn't made a deal.

Studios would still be scrambling to get projects into production by March, but one agent predicted the frenzy of feature writing would slow down -- since no one would be completely certain that the WGA wouldn't suddenly pull the strike trigger. Studios already have frozen hiring on script polishes and punch-ups.

Three years ago, the WGA opted to work under an expired contract for more than five months -- essentially passing the ball to the DGA to work out a deal with companies, and then incorporating those gains into its new contract.

This time, the presumption had been that the WGA would wait until the DGA and SAG made their deals before returning to the bargaining table. But writers fired their executive director, John McLean, for following that course two years ago.

If there's no fall strike, the TV side would get a reprieve from having to revamp its winter schedule and begin replacing series with reality, sports and news.

Says the agent, "Until there's some real clarity on what's going to happen, it's going to be a mess."

Director/ Screenwriter Terry George talks about impending strike
By Wilson Morales

October 7, 2007

Read it here: http://www.blackfilm.com/20071005/features/terrygeorge.shtml

Thanks Katrose, this is crazy and outta had, 22 weeks for a strike wow.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111797404...d=1009&cs=1
Daily Variety
October 15, 2007

WGA strike talks log digital divide
Sides still far apart on new media revenues
By BEN FRITZ, MICHAEL LEARMONTH

For the past couple of years, Hollywood has been intensely hyping its digital dealmaking, both to the press and to Wall Street.

Hardly a day goes by without an announcement trumpeting deals for downloads on gadgets ranging from iPods to Xboxes or for streaming content on seemingly every website.

But all that hype is biting back at the bargaining table.

Accounting for digital revenues has emerged as a major sticking point during the three months of contract negotiations between companies and the Writers Guild of America. The guild has seized on Hollywood's bullishness over digital deals to hammer home its dual points: Digital media revenues will be a major driver of revenue growth at the media congloms, and writers deserve a slice.

The trouble is that there's still a big gap between the promise of future revenues and the reality of actual revenues.

The amount of money flowing into Hollywood from digital distribution is still miniscule, particularly on the movie side. The studios are each making less than about $20 million annually from all the different ways their movies can be downloaded, according to studio and digital media insiders.

On the TV side, things are a little better, as more people want to download TV shows. But insiders estimate that the major networks are bringing in well under $100 million each vs. $22 billion spent on network TV advertising in the U.S. in 2006, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

No one knows when a windfall will come, if it ever does. Studios say it's undoubtedly further away than the three years any WGA deal will encompass. But guild negotiators don't want to fall behind the growth curve of a new medium.

It's easy to see why the studios and TV networks want to hype the potential of digital: With DVD sales on the decline and viewers skipping TV ads on DVRs, the media biz needs to prove that it has a growth path for the future.

But John Bowman, chairman of the WGA's negotiating committee, has zeroed in on what he calls the "disconnect" between what the companies have told Wall Street and what had been said after the first two days of negotiations in July.

"Investors are hearing about the changing landscape in entertainment and exciting new markets to exploit," Bowman said. "In contrast, the AMPTP communicates nothing but problems to the Writers Guild."

The WGA has also published multiple charts that spotlight such sunny forecasts -- such as an eMarketer study showing online streaming revenues growing 63% annually from $775 million this year to $2.9 billion in 2010, with the assertion that Hollywood studios will capture 75% of online video ad revenues.

"Positive economic events are daily giving the lie to (the companies') doomsday scenario," Bowman said at the time.

That disconnect is a big problem for studios and networks as they approach labor negotiations.

"Everybody realizes there is going to be something here," said Bruce Eisen, head of consultancy Digital Advisors and the former prexy of movie download site CinemaNow. "But what they're doing is figuring it out. In the world of studio money, it's not even close to there yet."

The guilds are justifiably dubious: When it comes to digital media, Hollywood seems to have a poverty story for the guilds and a success story for everyone else.

"I had a major network come in and complain to me about how crappy their iPod deal is," recounted one senior digital media exec. "I told them, 'I sure wouldn't know that from what you're saying in the press.' "

But on the whole, digital media does indeed seem to be more hype than reality for Hollywood. On the movie front, studios are selling or renting fewer than 20,000 downloads of a movie title. That's a miniscule number compared to the millions of DVDs being sold.

Insiders expect the download figure to grow, but not substantially in the near term. And, they all agree, digital movie distribution won't be a viable business until download prices are cheaper than DVDs and downloads are readily viewable on TV screens.

NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox have all restructured their license agreements with studios to give them broad latitude to repurpose network shows for the Web. And over the past year, they've renegotiated affiliation agreements with local stations to allow them to stream episodes through their own websites and others like Yahoo, AOL, MSN and the News Corp.-NBC U joint venture Hulu.com.

Still, in terms of revenue, the digital initiatives of the nets are more promotional than profitable. Madison Avenue is enamored with online video advertising but will spend only about $500 million on online video ads in 2007, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, in part because the auds remain comparatively small.

"It's expensive, and there is very little inventory to buy, but the consumer is a light TV viewer, so we are testing it," said Tim Spengler, chief activation officer for Initiative Media, at a recent conference.

But the WGA is also looking to the future. Digital media is indeed small now, but so was homevideo when the guild struck what it considers to be a disastrous deal on that front in 1985. For its part, the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers points out that WGA members have received hundreds of millions of dollars from the homevid agreement.

While traditional advertising spending was down in the first half of 2007, online ad spending rose more than 17%. The question for Wall Street is whether digital revenues will rise quickly enough to replace declining network TV advertising.

As technology advances, digital distribution could also increasingly replace traditional methods by which creators currently make residuals. For now, cable/satellite TV and DVDs are clearly superior to Internet streams and downloads both in convenience and image quality -- particularly when the content is in high definition.

But that will likely change. Instead of buying or renting DVDs, consumers may one day use the broadband connection on their TVs to download or stream any movie they want. Instead of watching a repeat of a TV show, they could just order from the Net whenever they want content on-demand.

But no one knows when that day will arrive. At the start of negotiations in July, the AMPTP offered the WGA two options -- extend the current contract for three years so an independent study could be conducted to sort out how writers should be compensated amid the fast-changing digital market; or agree to a revolutionary revamp of the residuals system under which writers would be paid residuals only after producers recover basic costs.

The WGA rejected both ideas on the spot, prompting the AMPTP to take the study proposal off the table.

With the current contract expiring on Oct. 31, both sides are due back at the bargaining table Tuesday, and the guild is seeking strike authorization from its 12,000 members. The only optimistic speculation that has emerged has centered on the AMPTP bringing back the study idea, although WGA leaders have been especially dismissive of that notion.

Bowman has said the study idea was flawed because it was premised on the same reasoning as the 1985 homevideo deal -- "Models haven't emerged, the environment is uncertain, we'll take care of you later."

"Well," said Bowman, "We know what happened then. Homevideo and DVD sales soared, and nobody got taken care of."

(Dave McNary in Hollywood contributed to this report.)

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/radio/cl-et...0,7995340.story

CHANNEL ISLAND / SCOTT COLLINS
A writers' strike nobody wants
By SCOTT COLLINS
CHANNEL ISLAND

October 15, 2007

HOW will we get to sleep without David Letterman's "Top 10 List"? Or Stephen Colbert's "The Word"? What if we're left hanging with story interruptus on "Heroes" or "Lost"? Is there life after " 'Til Death?"

In short: Is a writers' strike really inevitable?

OK, so maybe mandatory withdrawal from a few shows would not be an entirely negative experience. But still.

In case you've ignored the sounds of rising panic rippling over Hollywood lately: The networks and studios have been negotiating a new contract with the union representing TV and film writers, and . . . let's just say it's not going well.

If it happens, a strike could wind up being even more damaging than the infamous 1988 writers' walkout, which academics and other observers have generally characterized as a lose-lose. Back then, thousands of people were thrown out of work for more than five months, and some estimates peg the entertainment industry's strike-related losses as high as $500 million.

The TV business has changed a lot since then, in ways that may make a strike even less palatable now. More about that in a minute.

In any case, the Writers Guild of America isn't finding much common ground with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, with the sides far apart on issues like splitting revenues from new media and whether reality shows should be unionized. At the conclusion of talks Thursday, the AMPTP fired off a statement ripping the guild for raising what it said were "a number of red herrings and irrelevant financial information." The guild has publicly dissed the producers' group as "not serious" (both sides are due back at the bargaining table Tuesday). If members give the OK, the guild could call a strike as early as Nov. 1.

That is why in the last couple of weeks, the TV business -- networks, studios, writers, agents, managers and everyone else -- has been thrown into a major tizzy. What seemed hypothetical just a month ago has suddenly become uncomfortably real.

Many economists are pointing to a U.S. class gap of 1920s-size proportions, so it's not that surprising that labor unrest is also making a comeback. When Chrysler workers struck for six hours last week, some wags dubbed it a "Hollywood strike" -- that is, just for show.

Plenty of TV veterans are wishing the writers' negotiation could find a way to go Hollywood too ("Can't they avert this?" one talent manager pleaded with me last week). This mess may take a lot more time to sort out than it takes to watch "The Starter Wife."

Studios are cramming to shoot as many episodes of existing series as they can before any work stoppage. Crews on NBC's "Heroes" and ABC's "Ugly Betty" have been hustling like crazy, with multiple units racing to shoot two episodes simultaneously last week. "The studio wants to get as much stuff shot as we can by Nov. 1, but we can only write the show as fast as we can write it," Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, executive producers of "Lost," wrote me in an e-mail. (Cuse sits on the guild's 17-member negotiating committee.)

Some new shows with middling-to-poor ratings -- including NBC's "Journeyman" and CBS' "Cane" -- have received extra script orders.

Network officials aren't talking for the record about their strike plans. But almost everyone agrees that once the supply of new scripted episodes gets burned off -- say, by mid-January -- network prime time schedules would quickly devolve to the two "Rs": reality and repeats. Reality shows generally don't use guild talent, so existing series like "American Idol" and "Dancing With the Stars" would be strike-proof.

There might suddenly be more prime time sports too. And after disappearing almost entirely from network schedules, newsmagazines might come roaring back in style.

Perhaps most important, if the strike lasted for longer than a few weeks, the pilot season -- when networks would start the process of producing new dramas and comedies for the 2008-09 season -- would be thrown into disarray. The networks are already hedging bets by giving some early pilot orders.

In fact, the 1988 strike already offers clues about what we might expect this time around. Back then, newsmagazines like "48 Hours" caught on while scripted shows went dark. Some series, most notably "Moonlighting," never recovered from the disruption. And some folks made a valiant attempt to carry on: The host of NBC's "Late Night With David Letterman" gamely tried to write his own "Top 10 List" for a while.

But the past may not be a reliable guide this time around. The TV business bears little resemblance to its old self of 1988. At that time, networks and studios couldn't be owned by the same company. Broadcasters still had a commanding lead over cable. And beyond future Nobel laureate Al Gore, few people had even heard of the Internet -- which, by the way, first opened to commercial interests that year. No one was using iPods or DVDs or DVRs. "There's much more competition for the audience's attention than there was 20 years ago," said Tim Spengler of New York ad firm Initiative.

Simply put, this is a bad time to be testing the loyalty of prime time TV viewers. That may be why everyone's talking about the strike with a kind of resigned dread. Like World War I, it's a conflict no one wants but everyone seems powerless to stop.

Writers are fed up because they think the studios have been flaying them alive in every negotiation since '88, even finding a way to stiff scribes over DVD revenues. But writers are also nervous about dropping the big one. Who knows what might happen? "My greatest concern is that by striking, we're playing our last and final card . . . against a more heavily armed opponent," Craig Mazin, a screenwriter who co-writes "The Artful Writer" blog, e-mailed me.

Some shows could be seriously damaged. Last year, ABC gave "Lost" a three-month hiatus in the middle of the season -- and the layoff was promptly blamed for the show's subsequent ratings woes. What would a strike do to the serialized thriller's fan base?

Obviously, anything that threatens scripted series isn't good for TV writers. The networks and studios know this, and that's why their reps are eagerly feeding reporters stats about how many network time slots have been lost to reality shows over the last few seasons. Message: Stop moaning about your compensation, you laptop-toting, latte-sipping ingrates, or you'll all end up writing intros for Ryan Seacrest.

If that sounds like overkill, well, the networks are running scared. Executives would likely have to renegotiate ad rates and offer extensive make-goods if their prime time lineups are hit by a strike, Spengler says.

Can't they avert this? Well, sure. It's possible that this will turn into a repeat of 2001, when the entire town braced for a writers' strike that never came. But even that near miss had serious consequences: The stockpiling meant to protect studios and networks from a strike left them instead with a glut of product, leaving many workers unemployed well into 2002.

"To me, a strike means a loss," said Mazin, summing up the ambivalence of many. "On the other hand, some things are worth striking over, even if it means shooting yourself in the foot."

scott.collins@latimes.com

Thanks for the update Kat!

Thanks for keeping us updated Kat....

Daily Variety
October 16, 2007

WGA strike rules bashed
AMPTP president threatens to sue guild
By DAVE MCNARY

Hollywood is looking more and more like a war zone.

Studios and networks blasted back Monday at the WGA's recently announced strike rules, with AMPTP prexy Nick Counter threatening to sue the guild while TV writing staffs scramble to bank as many stories as possible before a possible work stoppage.

"We are outraged by the WGA's 'strike rules' filled with threats of fines, punishment and blacklisting," Counter said in a statement. "It is troubling and irresponsible that the WGA leadership spends so much time and energy on tactics, threats and attempts to intimidate anyone who doesn't agree with them, and so little time and energy on trying to reach a reasonable labor agreement that would avert a strike."

The guild issued hardline regulations last week for its 12,000 members, including bans on writing animated features and for the Internet, even though those arenas are largely not under WGA jurisdiction. The strike rules bar any writing for struck companies, delivering any material or signing documents relating to writing assignments; they compel members to honor guild picket lines, perform assigned strike support duties and reporting strike-breaking activity. Discipline for violations can include expulsion, suspension, fines and censure; nonmembers who perform banned work during a strike will be barred from joining the WGA.

Counter said the AMPTP has been "flooded" with requests for information about the strike rules and vowed to hold WGA members to their commitments, even if that involved pursuing legal action.

"We expect that all of our employees will live up to their contractual obligations, and we will vigorously pursue legal remedies if the WGA unlawfully tries to interfere with their ability to do so," Counter said. "We will aggressively defend and protect all our employees, including guild and union members, against any unlawful action taken by the WGA."

And, in a move akin to pouring gasoline on a fire, the AMPTP also posted extensive guidance Monday on its website as to how WGA members can file for "financial core" status -- under which members resign their WGA membership and withhold the dues spent by the guild on political activities but can still work on union jobs.

The AMPTP also pointed out that members who go "fi-core" can't be disciplined for working during a strike. But, given the high stakes of the conflict, it's probable the WGA would move to publicly embarrass members who take such a step.

John Bowman, chief of the WGA's negotiating committee, issued a pointed response telling the AMPTP to butt out.

"WGA members don't need management's help in determining the rules that would apply during a work stoppage," he said. "Writers will make that decision democratically and for themselves. The AMPTP should worry less about our internal processes and more about avoiding a strike by negotiating a fair agreement."

The strident tone of Monday's comments is certain to deepen the pessimism that a strike is becoming inevitable -- possibly as early as Nov. 1 -- amid increasing hostility and no progress at the bargaining table, where negotiations resume today.

The contract expires Oct. 31 at midnight. WGA strike authorization ballots are due Thursday.

The looming threat of a work stoppage, meanwhile, is hitting TV writers' rooms hard. The writing staffs of many primetime series are bunkered in this week, trying to generate as many stories and finish outlines as quickly as possible.

According to the WGA's strike rules, scribes who also have producing duties on their shows will be able to seek the guild's blessing to continue with those producing responsibilities -- hence the mad dash to get scripts into shape.

"We've gone to the mattresses," said an industry vet working on a top primetime series about the round-the-clock hours his staff has planned for the next few weeks.

It's much harder to work far ahead on comedy series, though, because so much of the writing and rewriting is done after table readings and rehearsals with actors -- a process that can't be rushed much past the regular weekly sked.

"They asked us how many scripts we could have ready, but the truth is with TV you can only go as fast as you can go," said one showrunner.

While there are many in the working scribe tribe who question the WGA leadership's aggressive stance, others say they're not inclined to turn up their output at such a sensitive moment.

"We saw little incentive to give the studios more leverage by giving additional scripts," the showrunner said. "And we're also prohibited from producing our own episodes if they are picketing in front of the studio. Even showrunners can't cross a picket line to produce previously scripted episodes."

Writers toiling on pilot scripts are facing even more pressure to get their first drafts into the network before the end of this month, rather than the more typical timetable of just before or just after Thanksgiving. Scribes want to get their scripts into network execs' hands now, because while a work stoppage would surely throw the traditional pilot season into a tailspin, projects that execs can evaluate during the down time would seem to stand a better chance of getting greenlit than scripts turned in after the turmoil of a strike, industry insiders said.

"The pressure is on," said another exec producer, who's working on a pilot. "The studios are applying pressure to backlog scripts and to deliver pilots as soon as possible."

Still, the pressure's not across the board. Another exec producer said he hasn't been asked to rush any more scripts before the end of the month and noted that many writing staffs -- already smaller than they have been in the past on many shows -- are sometimes just barely hitting their deadlines as it is.

"My gut feeling is it's really hard to do, and I don't know how you do it at this point," he added.

On the feature side, studios are imposing an Oct. 31 deadline for scripts; some scribes have been notified they won't be paid for work that had been due beyond that date. And one manager reported that dealmaking for new projects has slowed.

"You can't really close writer deals unless it's for something that's already been in the works," he added.

(Cynthia Littleton, Michael Schneider and Josef Adalian contributed to this report.)

Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117974094.html

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/...=la-home-center

From the Los Angeles Times
Residual resentment slows Hollywood talks
Studios want to revamp pay for reruns. Writers and actors want more.
By Richard Verrier
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 16, 2007

As a young writer, Marc Cherry found early success on NBC's hit show "The Golden Girls," then toiled in obscurity for the next 12 years.

Two shows he created for Fox and CBS were canceled. None of the TV pilots he developed clicked. In debt $30,000, he sold his Hancock Park home, moved into a small condo in Studio City and even borrowed money from his mother.

What sustained him in the fallow years, before his desperation inspired ABC's 2004 hit "Desperate Housewives," were the little green envelopes that showed up in his mailbox. Reruns of "The Golden Girls," which got a second life on the Lifetime cable channel, brought residual checks that one year totaled $75,000.

Residual fees are at the center of labor talks underway between the Hollywood studios and the union that represents movie and TV writers. The major studios want to revamp the decades-old system, citing soaring production costs and fragmented audiences amid today's digital revolution.

But the writers say these payments help them weather Hollywood's feast-and-famine work cycles. Without residuals, Cherry said, he might have been forced to "get a real job."

TV viewers might never have had "Desperate Housewives," the darkly comic tale of suburbia that helped lift ABC out of the doldrums.

"These residuals allowed me to survive long enough to create a show that is a huge profit center for the network," said Cherry, 45, a Long Beach native and member of the Writers Guild of America negotiating committee. "That's what kept me afloat."

The major studios and the Writers Guild are far apart in negotiations on a three-year contract that would replace the one that expires Oct. 31. The writers are scheduled to vote this week on whether to give the board the authority to call a strike if no deal can be reached. Studios are preparing for a strike as early as Nov. 1, which would be the first writers' walkout in nearly 20 years.

A major sticking point in the talks is the residual fees that actors, writers and directors receive when their movies or TV shows are rerun on television or sold for release on home video and in foreign markets. The writers' West Coast guild collected $264 million in residuals in 2006.

But the writers want more money. They are pushing to double the payment they receive for TV shows or films that are released on home video. Currently, they receive about 4 cents for every DVD sold under a pay formula agreed to in the 1980s, when manufacturing home videocassettes was expensive. They also seek higher pay for movies and TV shows sold over the Internet and residuals for shows created for the Web and other new media.

Studio executives, however, have resisted paying more for digital downloads and contend that it's premature to set pay formulas for online shows when the medium is experimental.

They propose overhauling the system, paying TV and film residuals only after the studios have recouped their costs. They contend that residuals were developed at a time when studios more than offset their film costs at the box office, which hasn't been the case for nearly three decades. TV networks say they have been squeezed by a shrinking syndication market and a migration of younger audiences to the Internet.

"It is simply no longer tenable to be paying residuals on losses as we have for three decades," said Nick Counter, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. "We must adapt to the realities of the marketplace, the new demands from our audiences and new technologies, or suffer the fate of those who deny change or don't adapt fast enough."

Proposed changes won't eliminate residuals, he said, but "adjust the point at which they are triggered. . . . Writers are highly regarded and highly rewarded, and that is not going to change."

Guild officials have dismissed the studio proposal, saying it would rely on dubious Hollywood accounting.

The residual payment system dates to the early days of radio. Major Hollywood studios began offering TV residuals in the 1950s on the theory that talent should be compensated for the ongoing reuse of their work.

Since then, residuals have been a fixture in Hollywood -- and a recurring source of dispute. Ronald Reagan led the Screen Actors Guild on a strike in 1960 to secure residuals for feature films shown on television. In 1988, a fight over residual payments for TV shows broadcast in foreign countries helped trigger a 22-week strike by writers. The Writers Guild could be joined in its fight for higher residuals by SAG, which will be negotiating a labor contract of its own next year to replace the one that expires in June 2008.

Some industry watchers interpret the studios' residuals proposal as a negotiating tactic rather than a serious intention.

Still, the move has triggered a fierce reaction among rank-and-file actors and writers, who don't have the clout to secure lucrative deals that cut them in on profits.

"You tell me you're going to cut back on my residuals, you might as well put a gun to my head," said Vic Polizos, a veteran TV and film actor. "That's my lifeblood. It's my kids' lifeblood. I'll go to the mat to defend it."

You may not have heard of Polizos, but you've probably seen him. The 60-year-old actor has appeared in more than 80 films and TV shows, often as an FBI agent or a police detective. His credits include such TV shows as "NYPD Blue" and "Jericho" and films including "Harlem Nights" and "Prizzi's Honor."

Despite his large body of work, Polizos lives modestly in a middle-class neighborhood in Reseda. He earns about $75,000 to $100,000 a year and as much as $35,000 more from residuals. The extra money, he said, has helped him raise his two children -- a teenage daughter and a son now in college.

A barrel-chested man with a theatrical voice that hints of his Southern roots, Polizos often plays New Yorkers, though he was raised in Montgomery, Ala., where his father owned two Greek restaurants.

After studying acting at Temple University in Philadelphia, Polizos worked on and off Broadway before landing his first film role in Robert Redford's 1980 movie "Brubaker."

The film, in which he played trustee prison guard Billy Blalock, gave him his first residual check: a $900 payment when the movie ran on cable TV. That was three times his weekly wage in New York, where he waited tables between theater gigs.

"It was enough money for me to see my folks [in Alabama] and buy a few Christmas presents," he said. "It was like God had tapped me on the shoulder."

After moving to Hollywood in 1984 with his first wife, Polizos landed guest appearances in shows such as "Seinfeld" and films including Stephen King's "Graveyard Shift."

Then he went nearly two years without steady work, earning as little as $30,000 a year from small jobs while relying on residuals to support his family.

"I don't know what I would have done without the residuals," he said.

Writer-producer Brian Scully, now a writer for the Fox TV show "Family Guy," gives his own testimonial. The onetime comedian from West Springfield, Mass., thought he was set once he landed a job on the syndicated TV series "Out of This World." When the show ended after several seasons, Scully spent more than a year out of work.

He thought he might have to return to selling TVs at JCPenney in Glendale until he received a $20,000 check for reruns of the show.

Such residual checks have helped Scully, 47, keep his health insurance benefits, which are tied to minimum earnings, something he appreciated recently when his wife gave birth to a premature baby weighing 2 1/2 pounds. "If that had happened in a year when I didn't have health insurance," he said, "I'd lose everything."

Anne-Marie Johnson, best known for playing Althea Tibbs in the NBC series "In the Heat of the Night," never gave much thought to residual checks until circumstances intruded on a busy career.

In 2001, Johnson was on the set of the TV series "JAG" when she got a phone call that her mother had been hospitalized, severely ill from sepsis.

The news hit Johnson hard. She was close to her mother, a former high school teacher. Determined to be at her side, Johnson walked off the set and didn't return, leaving behind a show she had worked on for five years.

"I had to make a choice of continuing to work or care for my mother," said Johnson, a former first national vice president of the Screen Actors Guild. "I told my manager, 'Don't call me.' "

She moved into her mother's Silver Lake home and cared for her around the clock, operating respiratory equipment, administering medicines and coordinating home nursing care. "She was my best friend in the world," said Johnson, whose father had passed away in 1987.

For the next two years, Johnson lived off residuals, collecting as much as $37,000 annually from reruns of "In Living Color" and other shows. The money paid her bills and helped defray nearly $100,000 in out-of-pocket home-care expenses for her mother, who died in February 2005.

"Residuals," she said, "saved my life."

richard.verrier@latimes.com

Hollywood Reporter

No negotiating session, but Counter attack
Outraged by WGA's 'strike rules'
By Carl DiOrio

Oct 16, 2007

ORLANDO -- Management and labor reps didn't have a negotiating session scheduled for Monday in the WGA's contentious film and TV contract talks, but that didn't stop the parties from squabbling.

Since July, the guild has been meeting with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers to hammer out a new contract to replace a WGA pact set to expire Oct. 31. Most sessions have been marked by a notable lack of agreement on almost any issue, followed by separate assessments of the day's talks in which each accuses the other of bad intent.

Today, they just skipped the negotiating session.

"We are outraged by the WGA's 'strike rules,' filled with threats of fines, punishment and blacklisting," AMPTP president Nick Counter railed.

The outburst was prompted by recently formulated WGA regulations under which members taking on entertainment writing projects of just about any sort -- whether under guild jurisdiction or not -- could be punished by fine or banishment. IATSE international president Thomas Short criticized the WGA strike rules last week, saying they amounted to a threat against writers who might want to work on select projects supervised by the IA's Animation Guild.


The WGA is conducting a strike-authorization vote among its 12,000 members. The balloting, to be concluded by Thursday, seeks only the authorization to call a strike against studios and networks if such a move is deemed strategically beneficial at any time after the current film and TV pact expires.

"It is troubling and irresponsible that the WGA leadership spends so much time and energy on tactics, threats and attempts to intimidate anyone who doesn't agree with them and so little time and energy on trying to reach a reasonable labor agreement that would avert a strike," Counter said.

"We expect that all of our employees will live up to their contractual obligations, and we will vigorously pursue legal remedies if the WGA unlawfully tries to interfere with their ability to do so," he added. "We will aggressively defend and protect all our employees, including guild and union members, against any unlawful action taken by the WGA."

Counter claimed that the AMPTP has been "flooded with requests by our employees for information regarding their rights and options as members and nonmembers of the WGA."

Responding to Counter, WGA negotiating committee chair John Bowman suggested the AMPTP leave such matters to the guild to sort out.

"WGA members don't need management's help in determining the rules that would apply during a work stoppage," Bowman said. "Writers will make that decision democratically and for themselves. The AMPTP should worry less about our internal processes and more about avoiding a strike by negotiating a fair agreement."

The AMPTP and the WGA are scheduled to resume their negotiations at 10 a.m. today at AMPTP headquarters in Encino.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ball...1&cset=true

From the Los Angeles Times
LABOR
Writers Guild votes overwhelmingly to authorize a strike
In what union officials say is a record turnout, 90% of members approve a walkout if a contract can't be settled by Oct. 31.
By Richard Verrier
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 20, 2007

Hollywood's film and TV writers are ready to trade their pens for picket signs if they can't reach a deal with their employers by Halloween.

Members of the Writers Guild of America voted by an overwhelming margin to authorize their leaders to call a strike if they can't negotiate a three-year contract with the major studios to replace one that expires Oct. 31. Of 5,507 members who voted, 90% favored granting a strike authorization. Guild officials said the turnout was a record for the union, which has nearly 12,000 members.

"Writers do not want a strike, but they are resolute and prepared to take strong, united action to defend our interest," said Patric M. Verrone, the guild's president. "What we must have is a contract that gives us the ability to keep up with the financial success of this ever-expanding global industry."

The vote -- sought by guild leaders to give them more leverage in negotiations that have been stymied by deep differences -- marked the first time writers have voted on such an authorization since 1988. That vote paved the way for a 22-week strike that cost the entertainment industry an estimated $500 million.

The vote doesn't mean there will be an immediate strike, but it gives guild leaders the option of calling one sometime after the expiration of the contract.

Few were surprised by the results announced Friday, given that contract talks have been highly contentious and both sides have spent months preparing for a showdown. Seeking to defuse tensions, the major studios on Tuesday withdrew a proposed revamping of the decades-old residuals payment system, removing a major stumbling block to negotiations.

But that decision came too late to have much effect on the vote because most guild members had already cast their ballots. Studios have held the line on the union's other key demands, such as granting residuals for shows streamed over the Web free and giving writers a bigger cut of home video sales.

"A strike authorization vote is a pro forma tactic used by every union in the country, and usually the vote is overwhelmingly in favor of a strike," said Nick Counter, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

"We are not surprised with the outcome of this vote, given reports of how this election was conducted. Our focus is on negotiating a reasonable agreement with the WGA."

Writers have rallied behind a theme that might best be summed up by the Who's hit song "Won't Get Fooled Again." Writers maintain they were shortchanged years ago when they agreed to a discounted pay formula for home video sales, only to see that business take off. And they're determined not to make the same mistake again as the digital revolution upends the entertainment industry.

"The guild made a bad deal 20 years ago and they've been angry ever since and they don't want to do it again," said Jonathan Handel, an entertainment industry attorney with TroyGould in Los Angeles and a former associate counsel for the Writers Guild. "That's why we're seeing a line drawn in the sand."

For their part, the studios maintain that DVD sales are needed to offset rising marketing and production costs, and they contend that it's too early to lock into pay formulas for shows distributed online because technologies are rapidly changing and they're still grappling with uncertain business models.

Although the vote drew wide support from writers, one of the guild's more prominent members blasted the union's handling of the ballots.

Writing on his blog Thursday night, Craig Mazin, whose credits include the films "Scary Movie 4" and the upcoming "Superhero!" accused the guild of breaking from a long-standing practice of conducting elections through secret ballot. Mazin wrote that a union "strike captain" called him, saying she had been informed by the guild that Mazin had not voted, and she urged him to do so.

"I'm disgusted with guild leadership for daring to be so bold, and for abandoning such an obvious and necessary prerequisite for a fair and decent democratic referendum," he wrote.

A guild spokesman said, "Members were encouraged to vote, but how they voted was completely secret."

Until recently, conventional wisdom was that the guild would not walk out immediately but would work without a contract until early next year, to line up its negotiations with the more powerful Screen Actors Guild, whose contract expires June 30. SAG representatives have been sitting on the sidelines of the writers' talks, and both unions have been closely aligned on a number of issues, especially concerns about Internet pay. As is often said, writers can't shut down production, but actors can. For that reason, many studio executives have been more focused on preparing for a possible actors' strike next summer.

In an effort to shift the spotlight back on their union, Writers Guild leaders have declared in recent weeks that members are prepared to walk out as early as Nov. 1. The change in strategy was partly an effort to jump-start negotiations that were going nowhere, according to guild insiders. Guild leaders also reasoned that they could inflict more damage by striking during the middle of the fall TV season than by waiting until early next year, when studios would have stockpiled more scripts.

Although networks have enough shows to carry them through the fall season, a strike next month would disrupt midseason programs that begin airing in January and next year's TV pilot season. A prolonged walkout could force the networks to cancel a number of series in advance of the key February sweeps period, when the networks showcase their best shows to drive up ratings that help establish the advertising rates for television stations.

Writers Guild leaders also were said to be concerned that the Directors Guild of America would negotiate an early deal, setting a framework for the other talent unions and potentially undercutting the Writers Guild's own goals. The Directors Guild has laid the groundwork for negotiations to begin this year, well before its contract expires in June.

Walking out next month, however, poses a considerable risk for the Writers Guild. Today's studios are better able to withstand a strike than in 1988 because they're owned by media conglomerates with deep pockets.

For their part, network executives have been preparing for a strike for months and say they will be ready should a walkout happen. They've ordered an unusual number of pilots for next year and have lined up a plethora of reality TV shows, sports programs and shows culled from their libraries to fill the airwaves during a strike.

Writers are rushing to finish scripts by Oct. 31, the deadline many studios have imposed. Some feature film studios have put a moratorium on signing deals with writers until the contract dispute is resolved.

Writers also are trying to grapple with far-reaching strike rules the guild recently announced. The rules could prove especially nettlesome for so-called hyphenates, writers who also work as producers and directors, who find themselves caught between two warring groups. To keep working, and to avoid possible fines and sanctions by their unions, some writers have signed contracts to work as "producer consultants," said one entertainment industry attorney, an arrangement that would allow them to cross picket lines.

richard.verrier@latimes.com

uh-oh, that's not good. Thanks for the update Kat!

Thanks Kat...I hope you are ok if this strike happens...

For those of us that work for the studios/networks themselves (i.e. not TV or feature production), while we're not strike-proof, we are in a better position than production personnel. If this comes to pass (and I don't think it'll happen in 10 days), my job and department will probably see a change in our revenues since we do work with productions a lot, but I don't think we'll close down for any length of time. I might see a reduction in my work staff, but that's all - not that that's not a problem for the staffers who'd be out of work, but it wouldn't be everyone for a long period of time.

All any of us can do is wait and see what happens. I personally believe we'll be in a black-cloud situation with the WGA until late Spring, then it'll get ugly as the DGA and SAG contracts near expiration and no deals are met. That's when it'll get really bad. In the meantime, we hold our collective breaths and pray.

Well, I'll send positive vibes and prayers from across the pacific.

Screenwriters move closer to strike
By Michael Kitchen, MarketWatch
Last Update: 2:28 PM ET Oct 27, 2007

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Hollywood screenwriters and the producers who employ them have suspended their labor negotiations until Tuesday, leaving only two days of talks before a key contract deadline, the writers' union said.
The current Writers' Guild of America contract expires Wednesday night. Union members have already approved a strike if a new deal isn't worked out, although the union could decide to work temporarily without a contract if it feels an agreement is near. See full story.
In an effort to fend off a walkout, a federal mediator has been assigned to help broker an agreement between the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, according to a report published Saturday in The Wall Street Journal.
The union -- which is composed of two separate WGA East and West guilds -- is demanding that its members receive higher residual fees for films and television shows on DVD. They are also asking that pay schedules be set up for other digital outlets, such as the Internet and mobile phones.
The producers have various concerns over these demands, as well as the writers' pension and health care costs. In the case of new media, they want to get a better sense of how programming for the Web and cell phones will be valued by the marketplace.
In a statement Friday, the WGA's negotiating committee said the producers' alliance had offered "a package that included new rollbacks related to our pension and health funds," before talks broke up over a dispute about the venue for the negotiations.
A strike could shut down many scripted television shows in the second half of the television season, including those for the February "sweeps" period. It could also delay new films, although it wouldn't affect those already in production. End of Story
Michael Kitchen is a copy editor for MarketWatch and is based in New York.

Daily Variety
October 27, 2007

Feds step in on WGA labor dispute
Guild contract expires Wednesday
By DAVE MCNARY

With a writers strike looming, the federal government's stepping in to mediate negotiations between the WGA and the companies after three months of unproductive bargaining.

The announcement came Friday evening after a day of negotiations concluded with no sign of significant progress. Talks will resume on Tuesday - just a day before the Writers Guild of America contract expires.

"We worked very hard to narrow the issues and reach an agreement but many issues remain unresolved," said Nick Counter, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers. "We will meet on Tuesday with the federal mediator who has been assigned by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service."

The WGA had no immediate comment.

Talks began Friday morning with a small slice of optimism emerging from the relentless doom and gloom of contract talks. The session lasted most of the day and marked the first time both sides were able to engage in discussing the give-and-take of bargaining - rather than merely presenting proposals - but it's believed the movements were fairly small.

Neither side provided details about the session at WGA West headquarters in Hollywood. And iIn contrast with most recent sessions, Friday's aftermath featured none of the usual finger-pointing statements of blame that have become standard issue.

Negotiators agreed to take the weekend and Monday off -- even though that will leave scant time before the WGA's contract expires at midnight Wednesday.

The decision to take a three-day break will underline the town's growing certainty about the talks - that the WGA plans to take the talks down to the wire, when fears of a strike may push studios and nets to soften on a contract issue in order to avert a work stoppage.

WGA leaders could telling its members to stop working and start picketing as early as next Thursday, should the talks fall apart. But if negotiators are making progress, writers would work under terms of the expired deal.

Studios and nets had presented a comprehensive package at Thursday's session, taking parts of several proposals off the talble with the goal of persuading the WGA to start coming off some of its 26 initital proposals. But the Alliance of Motion Picture & Televison Producers also flatly told the WGA to forget about any gains for residuals for DVDs, the CW, MyNetworkTV or the pay television market.

Those moves left the WGA unimpressed as the guild asserted that the AMPTP had only made "minor adjustments to major rollbacks."

Hollywood Reporter
October 27, 2007

Federal mediator called in for WGA contract talks
By Carl DiOrio

Oct 27, 2007

With the contentious contract talks between the WGA and studio reps approaching the 11th hour, the parties have decided to bring in a federal mediator for their next session.

"We worked very hard to narrow the issues and reach an agreement, but many issues remain unresolved," said Nick Counter, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers. "We will meet on Tuesday with the federal mediator, who has been assigned by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service."

It was unclear how much progress was marked in the latest session beyond a notably detailed discussion of the parties' respective proposals. But the meeting was certainly a busy one.

On Thursday, the AMPTP tweaked its previous proposals by sweetening its offers in some areas, such as health and pension contributions, and streamlining proposals in areas where the parties might mutually agree to stick with status quo contract provisions. A day later, the WGA responded by issuing their own, similarly detailed, breakdown of matters best described as important by perhaps not central to an agreement.

The current WGA-AMPTP contract expires Wednesday, and guild leadership already has secured the authority to strike anytime after that date. Negotiations could go on beyond the contract expiration, with writers continuing to work under terms of the old agreement.


That's what happened three years ago, when writers worked for five months under an expired pact. The last big writers strike was in 1988, when Hollywood was effectively shut down for five months.

The next session will bear watching both for tone and substance after a session Friday marked by lots of talk but little evidence of improved relations between the two negotiating teams.

A few hours after Friday's negotiations ended, the WGA issued a statement detailing how the latest discussions went.

"This morning, we responded to the package presented yesterday by the AMPTP," the WGA said. "We agreed to several of their proposals and withdrew or modified a number of our own proposals in order to narrow the areas in dispute. We also proposed a smaller working group to address several enforcement proposals made by both sides."

The AMPTP caucused for more than four hours and returned with a package that included new rollbacks related to our pension and health funds," the WGA continued. "They rejected our modified proposals and ignored our working group offer. They then informed us that they are not comfortable meeting at the WGA and insisted that negotiations return to the AMPTP. They declined to meet again until Tuesday."

Completing an assessment clearly critical of the management's attitude in the session, the guild added, "This means only two days remain to resolve the substantive issues of this negotiation before Wednesday night's contract deadline."

The negotiations have alternated between the AMPTP headquarters and guild offices in Los Angeles. On Thursday and Friday the parties met in Los Angeles; on Tuesday they will resume the talks in Encino.

After the WGA circulated its statement, an AMPTP spokesman said the date for the next session had been the subject of mutual discussion. The AMPTP had been prepared to meet Monday at a neutral location or at AMPTP headquarters, the spokesman said.

The latest public exchange highlighted well how little agreement there has been to date in the negotiations.

Still, with the parties now engaged -- arguably for the first time -- in actual back-and-forth discussion of detailed particulars, some might be tempted toward a glass-half-full reading of the situation. Whether any new momentum in the talks will carry over into discussions of difficult core issues like Internet compensation remains the big question.

Thanks for the update Kat!

If anyone wants to read some of the stories from the 1988 strike, you can find them here:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/...e-entertainment

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/10/29/h...r.ap/index.html
Strike threatens Hollywood; reality shows loom

Story Highlights
* Writers, producers have been negotiating since July; little progress
* If writers strike, possibly as early as Thursday, late-night shows 1st to get hit
* Networks getting ready to put on reality shows

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- TV viewers hooked on cliffhanger episodes of hit shows such as "Heroes" and "Grey's Anatomy" could be left dangling if writers walk off the job.

With Hollywood writers poised to log off their laptops as soon as Thursday, TV networks were bracing for the need to fill the airwaves with reality shows, game shows and even reruns if a threatened strike devours their script inventory.

Viewers could start seeing an onslaught of unscripted entertainment by early next year, when popular series such as "Desperate Housewives" and "Heroes" run out of new episodes.

"I was in a network meeting today, and they were referring to the fact the timing is really good for reality producers," said producer Mark Cronin.

He and partner Cris Abrego have been consistently busy with shows such as "Flavor of Love," "I Love New York" and "The Surreal Life."

But "it's going from 50 mph to 70 mph," Cronin said, adding that networks must "protect themselves and fill their airspace."

Members of the Writers Guild of America and the group representing film and TV producers were set to meet Tuesday with a federal mediator after scant progress in contentious talks that have dragged on since July.

With the current contract set to expire at midnight Wednesday, negotiators remain far apart on the central issue of raising payment for profits on DVDs and shows offered digitally on the Internet, cell phones and other devices.

More than 5,000 members of the Writers Guild of America recently voted, with 90 percent authorizing negotiators to call the first strike since 1988 if necessary.

"I'm willing to put my family on the line for what's right," said Mick Betancourt, a writer on the NBC show "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

Betancourt has a 4-year-old son and a baby due in December but says he is ready to walk a picket line if asked to do so.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group that negotiates on behalf of networks and studios, has said networks will continue to air quality programming.

"CBS is not going to go blank," CBS Corp. President and CEO Leslie Moonves has said.

If writers walk out, the effect wouldn't be felt immediately. Networks have enough episodes of shows such as "Ugly Betty" and "CSI" written and in production to last at least through the end of the year and possibly into next February, industry executives and analysts said.

But after that, schedules will run into trouble.

Producers already have tried to hurry shooting in preparation for a strike but not always successfully.

The CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" was asked by 20th Century Fox Television to shoot an extra episode during a planned production break last week.

"It simply would have been impossible, so we said no. That was pretty much where it started and ended," said Jamie Rhonheimer, a writer-producer on the series.

A strike could also leave the hosts of the big Hollywood awards shows speechless.

The Academy Awards, set for February, January's Golden Globes and other shows rely on teams of writers to fashion quips and monologues.

A prolonged writers strike could also affect next year's TV season. Pilots for next fall are being written now and the development process, which includes rewrites and casting, extends through the spring.

"When we stop working, it's going to be a lot of catch-up," to get pilots back on track for the fall, said Patti Carr, a writer who has projects in development with ABC and CBS.

Networks are busy mulling proposed reality projects that aren't governed by guild contracts.

The shows have the advantage of a quick production timeline, said producer Abrego, with a series able to go from "concept to pitch to air" in just a couple months.

Abrego expects to see networks going straight from a pitch to a series order, bypassing the time-consuming production of a pilot.

Viewers like reality shows but may be so angry at interruptions to their favorite prime-time programs that they turn off their sets in disgust, some observers fear.

"You don't want viewers turning away from television, because it can be hard to get them to turn back," said Charles Floyd Johnson, an executive producer on "NCIS."

Advertisers, too, would suffer from a long strike and would make networks share their pain.

Advertisers are "not going to get what they paid for," said analyst Shari Anne Brill of ad buyer Carat USA.

"There will be severe under-delivery (of viewers) on the schedule if you get repeats and less-desirable reality shows," she said. "It puts the networks in a horrific make-good situation."

Ad rates are based on predicted ratings; if a show falls short, networks have to make good the difference with additional commercial time.

She noted that ad revenue already was down from predictions, even before the season began.

In May, when the fall network schedules were introduced, advertisers committed to about $8 billion for prime-time commercials, compared to $9 billion just two years ago.

Film production would not immediately suffer the effects of even a prolonged strike because of the long lead time required to make features.

Still, studios could soon be wrestling with plots and endings for unfinished 2009 blockbusters such as "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and the next James Bond flick.

Once a film is in production, changes occur almost daily, with writers being asked to create new scenes, punch up dialogue or accommodate an actor's ad-libs or vision for a part.

None of that would happen once writers hit the picket line.

"What they are looking for is a script as close to a locked script as they can find," said Duane Adler, a writer who has been rushing to finish a 2009 movie for 20th Century Fox studios.

It's not a good time for Adler to go on strike, but he is ready to walk out if asked.

"I've got a movie coming out, I've got one I want to direct and one that is being fast-tracked," Adler said. "It's a bad time for me personally. But these things are secondary."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.








Find this article at:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/...e-entertainment

From the Los Angeles Times
THE BIG PICTURE: There's nothing new with the WGA strike
A recently published history of screenwriting reveals that Hollywood's contempt for writers goes back decades.
By Patrick Goldstein
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 30, 2007

WHEN it comes to crafty labor relations, Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers head Nick Counter should study the work of an old master -- MGM czar Louis B. Mayer.

In 1933, with panicky investors emptying banks across the country, Mayer summoned his contract players to a summit. Distraught and on the verge of tears, Mayer beseeched his talent to accept a temporary 50% pay cut. Moved by his entreaties, everyone willingly agreed.

After the meeting, Mayer seemed to quickly regain his composure. One of his production executives saw the studio pasha wink slyly at an underling, asking, "How did I do?"

Like everyone else, I've been following the acrimonious negotiations between Counter's AMPTP and the Writers Guild of America, wondering if there is any hope of a settlement before this week's strike deadline. Truth be told, I look forward to reading another story about the fight over a piece of DVD profits about as much as a new round of name-calling between Kobe Bryant and Lakers management.

The only real sparks have been provided by the harsh rhetoric from both sides of the table, which has inspired a wealth of "WGA, Producers Trade Barbs" headlines. Counter has blasted the WGA, calling the sessions "the most futile attempt at bargaining that anyone . . . has encountered in guild negotiation history." The WGA negotiators have returned fire, claiming Counter's team is "still stuck on its rollback proposals," saying its members "will not stand for that."

Last Thursday, before negotiations could begin, a bitter squabble reportedly broke out over how many chairs could be placed at the negotiating table.

Continuing animosity

AS it turns out, the vitriol is deeply rooted in Hollywood cultural history. It's a timely reminder that the current labor dispute is only the latest example of an age-old feud between screenwriters and their studio masters. As it happens, Marc Norman, who won an Oscar for writing "Shakespeare in Love," has written an engaging new book about many of these very struggles. "What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting" offers a fascinating portrait of Hollywood history, with a special focus on the contentious relationship between writers and the studio establishment.

If today's negotiations have been especially acrid, it's because of a mutual disdain that has poisoned relations between the two parties for generations. No one has described it better than critic David Thomson, who likens the Hollywood writer to "a divorce lawyer or a private eye: When you want them you have to have them, but later you despise them." This wariness dates back to the early days of sound, when the studios were forced to import large numbers of sophisticated New York playwrights and novelists to provide clever dialogue for the new talking pictures. The studio bosses resented the East Coast writers' prickly personalities and lefty politics, while the writers laughed off the moguls as vulgar buffoons.

"Basically it was a marriage that got off on the wrong foot," Norman told me the other day, taking a lunch break from the negotiations, where he serves on the guild's negotiating committee. "Being a writer in New York in those days meant something. But in Hollywood, the writer meant nothing. They were paid well, but the moguls never saw any real difference between their writers and the carpenters who built the sets."

One of the most intriguing revelations in Norman's book is that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was concocted by the studio brass as a company union to keep labor disputes inside the studio doors -- the Oscars were simply an afterthought. But the writers were too rebellious, especially after seeing unions flexing their muscles across the country.

In 1934, with talk of a strike by a budding writers guild in the air, MGM production chief Irving Thalberg laid down the law to a group of Metro writers. "If you proceed with this strike," he said, "I shall close this studio, lock the gates and there will be an end to MGM productions. And it will be you -- all you writers -- who will have done it."

By 1936, hundreds of writers resigned from the academy, forcing award organizers to pack the banquet with studio secretaries. Dudley Nichols won best screenplay for "The Informer" but refused to collect his statue.

The studio chiefs, who viewed themselves as beneficent patrons, were enraged by their unruly writers' activism. Addressing his scribes, Jack Warner said anyone who joined a union full of "radical bastards and soap-box SOBs" would find themselves out of work forever, adding with a classic Warner-esque flourish that "it wouldn't be a blacklist because it would all be done over the telephone."

Willing to compromise, the activists allowed a more conservative group of writers to join its leadership. But it turned out to be a trap, the result of a clandestine alliance between studio chiefs and favored writers. The union collapsed while key guild organizers were fired from their studio jobs. It wasn't until 1941 that the studios finally recognized the guild and agreed to allow writers to arbitrate credit disputes.

To be fair, it's hard to imagine a more difficult group to negotiate with than Hollywood writers, who despite their considerable talents have a reputation for Olympian feats of troublesome, self-destructive behavior. From Herman Mankiewicz to Billy Wilder, from Paddy Chayefsky to Robert Towne, it's hard to say who qualifies as the biggest pain in the neck.

A personality type emerges. Roman Polanski says Towne drove him nuts during the writing of "Chinatown," "fighting for every line of dialogue as if it were carved in marble." During the making of "The Goddess," Chayefsky so unhinged actress Kim Stanley, demanding more smoke when she lit a cigarette, that she threatened to quit unless he left the set. No one said it better than the policeman who, having arrested Mankiewicz after one of many drunken escapades, described the writer as "insulting, sarcastic, impolite and talkative."

Surely it's no coincidence that most movies about screenwriters, including "In a Lonely Place," "Barton Fink" and "The Player," involve intimations of murder and mayhem. I suspect this combative behavior became so enmeshed in the screenwriter DNA that it became hard to separate the fights over script maulings from the brawls over guild rights. Howard A. Rodman, a two-term member of the board of directors of the WGA, West, whose latest film, "Savage Grace," is due out next spring, recalls his father, Howard Rodman, also a one-time guild executive, as a "fearsome figure" at union meetings.

"He yelled and screamed so much it was a little scary," Rodman says of his father, who wrote such films as "Madigan" and "Charley Varrick." "He was so unhappy about what other people did to his work that he probably has a pseudonym on more scripts than his real name. In our house the expression went -- the script isn't finished until the name comes off."

A clash of cultures

EVEN today it's hard not to imagine a connection between what happens at the negotiating table and in script meetings.

"Your frustration builds up," says Rodman. "Perhaps metaphorically, when you're at the negotiating table, you get a chance to strike back at the big corporations who've come to represent your biggest frustrations during the script process. It's not unusual to see writers going around full of impacted rage or sullen self-pity. Shrinks in L.A. have built entire practices around it."

Norman isn't especially optimistic about the future, believing that the old studio patriarchs have been replaced by executives who think they're more in touch with the public taste than most writers. As he puts it: "There's now a generation of executives who wonder why the writer couldn't be more like a court stenographer who can just put the executives' ideas into writing."

It's almost inevitable that a labor war would erupt when the two sides see their medium in such a radically different light -- one largely as commerce, the other as creative expression.

It's the oldest dysfunctional relationship in Hollywood. Jack Warner and Herman Mankiewicz would be right at home hurling insults across today's negotiating table, once you taught them how to work a DVD player and replaced all that mineral water with a good fifth of whiskey.

"The Big Picture" appears Tuesdays in Calendar. Questions or criticism can be e-mailed to patrick.goldstein@latimes.com.

On a personal note, as I drove onto the studio this morning I saw WGA members preparing to "paper" anyone who had an opened window or seemed interested in what they were doing. This is just a prelude to whatever picket lines may be going up at midnight on Wednesday.

And more "bad news" is that the Teamsters have thrown their support behind the WGA should a strike happen. This means that even if the studios didn't get shut down because of script access, they definitely will feel it when no one's around to drive the trucks to and from location or even just driving equipment from one side of the lot to the other (like my department does). ::sigh::

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111797494...d=2821&cs=1

I hope everything turns out for the best. Not so much for the actors themselves, b/c I really don't care too much about what they have to do, but for all of the "behind the scenes" people like you, Kat. I forget what it is exactly that you do, sorry. But I do know that should the strike happen it will affect you. So I'm thinking about you KatRose. Good Luck!!

This is so terrible, I hope it works out for you guys.
Thanks for the update Kat.

The LA news was just on and the WGA was the top story. The talks have stopped for the night. There is a meeting of the WGA tomorrow, ie Thursday, night. According to the report, the union made a statement that DVDs and the Internet issues are not being addressed. It does not sound like there will be a contract soon but there is some uncertainty that a strike will be called immediately.

The AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers aka The Producers) has stated to the WGA and the federal mediator that unless the issue of DVD payments is removed from the table, there's no way to finalize any deal. On the other hand the WGA has stated that unless that issue is resolved, there won't be a deal. Definitely at an impasse.

There are many in Hollywood who believe the WGA won't strike today, but there's a lot of debate on whether or not they'll strike in the near future or if they'll wait until late Spring so they can add weight to a potential SAG and/or DGA strike next summer. The argument for now-ish is that TV shows don't have enough scripts to make it through the season and pilot season starts very soon. Without writers, neither of those functions would occur and the financial impact on the networks and studios would be huge. The argument for later is that if all three of the guilds go out together, their combined forces would truly shut down the town and could give them the upper hand in getting what they want.

Regardless of what happens, unless there is no strike whatsoever and no further threat is used, the "little guy" who works in and around the entertainment industry here in L.A. will lose financially. The degree of loss will be directly related to the length of the strike. For the time being, our management has assured us that the corporate side of the studio is not going to be affected by the strike, but given that my department services more than corporate (i.e. term deals, features, TV, commercials, events), I don't see how I can keep my revenues up when production may be reduced and people won't be spending money on parties because they won't know if they'll need that to pay mortgages or salaries.

Should be an interesting time for us all.

Posted: Wed., Oct. 31, 2007, 9:03pm PT
Strike in limbo as contract expires
Writers meet to discuss deadline, DVD issue
By DAVE MCNARY

WGA negotiations have unraveled over the DVD issue -- seriously ratcheting up the chances of a strike.

Talks hit the wall early Wednesday evening as companies demanded that the Writers Guild of America drop its demand to increase homevid residuals. Guild negotiators responded by saying they weren't prepared to continue and gave no indication when or if they'd return.

With the guild contract expiring at 12:01 a.m. today, WGA leaders can order their 12,000 members to strike at any time -- possibly as early as tonight's membership meeting at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

In an ominous sign, WGA strike captains have been told to instruct guild members to take their personal items home from offices at the end of work today.

The negotiating session ended as many others have, with both sides issuing statements blaming each other for being stubborn and unprofessional.

Nick Counter, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, said the companies believe they can make a deal by moving on other issues but insisted that increasing the DVD formula is a nonstarter.

"The companies believe that movement is possible on other issues, but they cannot make any movement when confronted with your continuing efforts to increase the DVD formula, including the formula for electronic sell-through," he said. "The magnitude of that proposal alone is blocking us from making any further progress. We cannot move further as long as that issue remains on the table."

The WGA shot back, accusing the companies of being nonresponsive to its move earlier in the day toward a compromise with a package of proposals that included movement on DVDs, new media and jurisdictional issues, though it declined to provide details. It asserted that it had also taken nine proposals off the table.

"The companies returned six hours later and said they would not respond to our package until we capitulated to their Internet demand," the WGA said. "After three and a h