Writers Reach A Tentative Deal
Movies, News, TV February 9th, 2008Well, it looks like we’ll have Christmas after all.
• Letterman, Ferguson Going Back with WritersAn end to Hollywood’s long and bitter writers’ strike appeared close on Saturday, as union leaders representing 12,000 movie and television writers said they had reached a tentative three-year deal with production companies.
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The agreement would let writers claim to have bettered a similar deal achieved last month between the production companies and the Directors Guild of America. In the third year of the Writers Guild deal, writers will be paid a percentage of the distributor’s revenue rather than the flat fee for Web-streamed television shows granted to the directors. The writers had insisted on this issue to ensure they not lose out on any new-media windfall the studios and networks may get from Web video. The producers yielded on this point — and the directors did not push it —arguing that Internet distribution is unlikely to become a significant business during the length of these contracts.
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The tentative agreement became possible when the sides reached a handshake deal nine days ago on a crucial term under which writers would be paid a fixed residual amounting to about $1,300 for the right to stream a television program online. In the third year of their contract, the writers would achieve one of their major goals: payments amounting to 2 percent of the distributor’s revenue from such streams.The percentage formula is viewed by many writers as protection against the possibility that traditional reruns — which have paid them residuals amounting to tens of thousands of dollars per episode in the past — will disappear because of Web streams in the near future.
Other major gains include a pay plan that pegs residuals for electronic downloads of movies and televisions shows at nearly double the rate paid historically for DVDs, and calculates the rate as a percentage of the distributor’s revenue, junking an old formula. [NYTimes.com]
• And everyone breathes a collective sigh of who cares
• The Grammys Will Have Writers
• Deal Shopping Sites
• Late Night Talk Shows to Return in January With or Without The Writers
