Striking writers fail to break deadlock with producers

Nov 30, 2007, 17:34 GMT

Los Angeles - Striking screenwriters have scheduled a new round of talks with producers next week after four days of secret negotiations failed to come up with a pay formula to end the almost four week stoppage.

The strike has paralyzed production on numerous popular TV shows like Desperate Housewives, The Office and 24, as screenwriters demand residual payments for work distributed over the internet, on mobile phones or other new digital media.

According to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers representing the studios, writers rejected a 'groundbreaking' offer that would have yielded an extra 130 million dollars over the 1.3-billion-dollar total they currently earn a year.

But leaders of the Writers Guild of America termed the offer a 'rollback' and insisted on an alternative formula that they estimated would cost studios an extra 151 million dollars a year, representing a claimed 3 per cent increase. Details of the offer were released after the end of negotiations late Thursday night.

In a letter to members, the guild blasted the studios' proposal as inadequate, saying it would pay only 250 dollars for a year's re-use of an hour-long program streamed on the Web, in contrast to the 20,000 dollars currently paid for a network re-run.

They also said the new proposal did not change the companies' proposed payments for downloaded films and shows. The guilds also said the companies refused to grant them jurisdiction over original content produced for the Internet.

Writers are seeking to double their share of digital sales to 2.5 per cent, more than eight times the amount studios offered, Jonathan Jacoby, an analyst with Banc of America Securities LLC in New York, wrote in a report November 5, the day the strike began. They also want to double royalties to 8 cents per DVD from about 4 cents.

The last strike by the Writers Guild in 1988 lasted some five months, costing the economy an estimated 500 million dollars. The current strike is estimated to be costing the economy more than 20 million dollars a day, and its continuation pushes both the writers and the studios under heavy economic pressure.