Talks Collapse Between TV Writers and Studios
By Steve Donohue -- Multichannel News, 12/8/2007 2:38:00 AM
Negotiations between TV writers and producers collapsed Friday night, killing the chances of the writers strike ending any time soon.
Five weeks into the strike, representatives for TV writers said Friday that the leader of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers ended talks after writers, which have been pushing for a larger cut of new media revenue, wouldn’t remove some items of debate from the table.
“We are leaving. When you write us a letter saying you will take all these items off the table, we will reschedule negotiations with you,” AMPTP president Nick Counter told the writers, according to a statement from John Bowman, chair of the Writers Guild of America negotiating committee.
WGA said producers are sticking to an offer of $250 fixed residuals for each program distributed on the Internet for one year. The guild said producers also want the WGA to drop a proposal on fair market value for their work, which they said would ensure fair payments from vertically integrated companies and prevent self-dealing.
“The AMPTP insists we let them do to the Internet what they did to home video,” Bowman said in a statement. “We reject the idea of an ultimatum. Although a number of items we have on the table are negotiable, we cannot be forced to bargain with ourselves. The AMPTP has many proposals on the table that are unacceptable to writers, but we have never delivered ultimatums.”
But in its statement, AMPTP accused writers of making unreasonable demands, including insisting that all writers hired for reality TV shows pay dues to the WGA. The AMPTP said that under its proposals, the average working writer’s salary would increase to more than $230,000 per year. It also claimed WGA isn’t serious about reaching a compromise.
“While the WGA’s organizers can clearly stage rallies, concerts and mock exorcisms, we have serious concerns about whether they’re capable of reaching reasonable compromises that are in the best interests of our entire industry,” AMPTP said in a statement. “It is now absolutely clear that the WGA’s organizers are determined to advance their own political ideologies and personal agendas at the expense of working writers and every other working person who depends on our industry for their livelihoods.”
The strike began Nov. 5. The work stoppage has already shut down late-night talk shows such as Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, NBC’s Tonight Show With Jay Leno and CBS’s Late Show With David Letterman.
TV networks have also adjusted their spring schedules, including Fox delaying the seventh season of hit series 24, which had been scheduled to debut in January.
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