[variety] Writers Reach Tentative Deal !!!

[Faos]

Hallelujah!!

http://www.variety.com/VR1117980589.html

WRITERS, PRODUCERS REACH TENTATIVE DEAL

Deal points revealed
By DAVE MCNARY

The WGA has finalized its tentative agreement with the majors and will present details of the pact to members today in meetings in Los Angeles and New York.

Those meetings — set for the Crowne Plaza in Gotham and the Shrine in Los Angeles — are expected to serve as a barometer for WGA leaders to determine whether the deal’s acceptable to the 10,500 striking writers.

The WGA West board of directors and the WGA East Council will meet Sunday to formally endorse the contract. And writers could be back at work as early Monday, depending on whether the WGA’s ruling bodies decide whether to end the three-month strike at those Sunday meetings.

If approved, the deal will run through May 1, 2011.

Leaders of the WGA made the announcement of the finalized deal early Saturday after spending much of Friday meeting with lawyers over the contract language. WGA West president Patric Verrone and WGA East prexy Michael Winship sent a message to members that stressed the gains made in the new-media sector.

“It is an agreement that protects a future in which the Internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery,” they said. “It creates formulas for revenue-based residuals in new media, provides access to deals and financial data to help us evaluate and enforce those formulas, and establishes the principle that, ‘When they get paid, we get paid.’ “

Verrone and Winship said in the message that the time has come to end the strike and cited the “enormous personal toll on our members and countless others.”

“As such, we believe that continuing to strike now will not bring sufficient gains to outweigh the potential risks and that the time has come to accept this contract and settle the strike,” they said. “Much has been achieved, and while this agreement is neither perfect nor perhaps all that we deserve for the countless hours of hard work and sacrifice, our strike has been a success.”

The finalized deal came a week after the Feb. 1 breakthrough in informal talks between WGA leaders — Verrone, negotiating committee chief John Bowman and WGA West exec director David Young — with News Corp. president Peter Chernin and Disney topper Robert Iger.

The resolution of the strike will enable TV networks to salvage the remaining TV season and pilot season along with permitting scribes to begin working again on film scripts. The end to the strike would also permit the Academy Awards telecast on Feb. 24 to proceed without disruption.

Members have remained strongly supportive of Verrone throughout the strike so it would be a surprise if the pact isn’t approved. Several of the board’s members are hardliners who were openly critical of the compensation terms to which the DGA agreed last month but Verrone will be able to tout gains in compensation for shows and films streamed on the Internet.

Verrone and Winship’s message singled out WGA jurisdiction and separated rights in new media, residuals for Internet reuse, enforcement and auditing tools, expansion of fair market value and distributor’s gross language.

The WGA leaders have been under pressure to be able to claim a victory in the talks that would justify the strike. But there is also widespread sentiment in the industry that the WGA strike helped pave the way for the DGA to achieve the gains made in its contract.

The WGA’s streaming deal still included a combination of a flat fee for the first year (excluding a two- to three-week window of free usage for promotional purposes) followed by a percentage of distributor’s gross. The WGA’s proposed pact on downloads is identical to the DGA deal, which more than doubles the residual payments from the old homevid formula for titles that sell more than 100,000 units.

The WGA’s terms also mirror the DGA agreement on new media jurisdiction, giving the guilds jurisdiction over projects with budgets of more than $15,000 per minute, $300,000 per program or $500,000 per series, whichever is lowest.

Most of the details of the pact were presented Friday at a strike captains meeting with WGA leaders stressing to the captains that the membership needs to view the deal as a pragmatic way to end the strike under the best terms available.

The most significant opposition is coming on the issue of the promotional window on ad-supported streaming. The objections center on concerns that TV viewing will be quickly migrating to the Intenet before the end of the contract, given current viewing trends.

Speculation had been going around since the Feb. 1 breakthrough in negotiations that the length of the window would be shorter than terms in the DGA deal — 17 days for continuing shows, 24 for new shows. But the window matches the DGA’s.

To some WGA members familiar with the current workings of streaming, that’s unnacceptable due to current data showing that the lion’s share of streaming views takes place within the first three to five days with the majority often in the first 24 hours.

Indeed, reaction to the deal points in the blogosphere on Saturday morning has been decidedly mixed, with much of the criticism pointed at the length of the promotional window. “How can this be a good deal when everyone was yelling (that) the DGA deal was bad?,” read one comment on the United Hollywood blog. “There’s still that 17 day/24 day window which is SO SO BAD.”

“Family Guy” scribe Patrick Meighan described himself as “nominally on the fence on this deal” but said in a United Hollywood post that he felt the shift to distributor’s gross in the third year of the pact “should end up being a much better deal for writers than the DGA deal.”

The wide range of opinions on the merits of the pact could complicate WGA leaders’ efforts to gauge at Saturday’s meetings whether the pact would pass a ratification vote. The lukewarm responses from some vocal members have raised the possibility of the guild staying on strike during the 10-day ratification process. WGA boards could also opt at Sunday’s meetings to trigger a special 48-hour ratification process, though that may not be as attractive if there’s significant dissent expressed at Saturday’s meetings.

[rcoleman15]

Here is a post WGA meeting update from deadlinehollywood.com:

Source:
http://www.deadlinehollywood.com

Tick-Tock (Continuously Updated): WGA Leaders Declare "Huge Victory"; Writer-Mogul Deal Informally OKed By WGA East And West; Today Leaders Voted To End Strike; Members Will Decide Tuesday; Hollywood Back To Work Wednesday?

SUNDAY AM: I'm told the WGA's Negotiating Committee met today from 9 AM-10 AM and agreed to recommend the writers-moguls deal and to call off the strike. The WGAW's governing Board and the WGAE's governing Council began meeting at 10 AM Pacific time to do the same thing. That confab should have the same outcome in time for a WGA news conference at noon with WGAW President Patric Verrone, WGAE President Michael Winship (on the phone), WGAW Executive Director and Chief Negotiator David Young, and WGA Negotiating Committee Chair John Bowman. No matter how the governing boards voted, the WGA membership will stay have the last work on calling off the strike within 48 hours, and accepting the newly negotiated contract within 10 days.(FYI: I can't attend because I'm still fluish and coughing my head off.)

Here's more detail, courtesy of United Hollywood, on the membership's 48 hour vote on whether or not to immediately lift the strike. The 48 hours starts today, probably by early this afternoon, with a view to a polling place-like vote probably in the WGA Theater on Tuesday. Voting will either be in person or by fax (proxy). If the vote passes, writers can go back to work. Then the writers will be given 10 days notice to vote by mail, in person or by fax (proxy) on accepting the new contract.

_______________________________________________

Here is the latest update and what was said in the aforementioned WGA Press Confrence held about an hour ago today:

SUNDAY 12:30 PM: At the WGA's news conference today, union leaders declared the new contract is "a huge victory for us". Trumpeted WGAW President Patric Verrone, "This is the first time we actually got a better deal in a new media than previously." Verrone credited News Corp. No. 2 Peter Chernin and Disney chief Bob Iger, and also CBS boss Les Moonves, with "being instrumental in making this deal happen" after the WGA spent 3 months "getting nowhere" with the AMPTP negotiators and lawyers. WGA negotiating committee chief John Bowman added that, "What happened to the Golden Globes was instrumental in getting the CEOs to this table. It was a huge symbol."

Verrone said it was "heartbreaking for me personally" to drop the WGA's demands relating to reality and animation (Verrone is an animation writer) "But it was more important that we make a deal that benefitted the membership and the town as a whole and got people back to work." Verrone stated that "The legacy of the '88 strike was the ability of the companies to develop content without writers and creators. The legacy of this strike will be the ability of writers and creators to develop content without the companies. We are making deals, and we will continue to make deals, with Google, Yahoo, and others beyond just the 7 conglomerates."

The leaders confirmed that WGA members would have 48 hours to call off the strike and 10 days to accept the newly negotiated contract.

But Verrone said TV showrunners (who have producing duties in addition to writing duties on TV series) would be allowed to go back to work Monday before the 48-hour notice vote by members is conducted. This no doubt solves the dilemma that the moguls made the deal negotiated with the WGA contingent on having the writers go back to work immediately.

The Writers Guild East Council and Writers Guild West Board voted to approve the contract and sent it to membership for a ratification vote, which will be conducted via mail ballot and at special meetings conducted on a date to be determined. In addition, the Council and Board also voted to lift the restraining order (strike) upon the majority vote of the membership, casting ballots in a vote to be conducted Tuesday, February 12th.

Variety reports that industry sources say the WGA contract reached with the majors "includes a provision that will allow scribes who were force majeuered from ongoing series to return to their old jobs. The contract does not address those who were force majeured from overall deals and other contracts if they were not working on a series that will resume production." I can also report that the Screen Actors Guild, whose contract expires in June, has not set a date yet when it will start negotiating with the moguls.

[Butterfingers]

I hear its finally over.

[Butterfingers]

Who ended up getting the better end of the deal? I cant understand that legal jargon.

[Poloshirtbandit]

There's no way I'm reading all that. Is 24 coming back this year or what?

[rcoleman15]

Originally Posted by Poloshirtbandit There's no way I'm reading all that. Is 24 coming back this year or what?

Being that they only have 8 episodes filmed and only about 16 weeks left on the 2007-2008 schedule I think it is doubtful.

I also believe I heard once that to shoot a full episode of this show it took two weeks to complete. So going by that math you would need 16 more episodes and 32 more weeks at minimum if they were to start filming again on Wednesday.

So I would expect this show to return later this year when the 2008-2009 fall schedule begins.

[Achilleus]

Thank heaven!

[Surfguy]

There's a simple way to handle the 24 issue. So, there isn't enough time to complete each episode without tacking on several more weeks. Have Jack take a nap for a few hours. :D

[mrpaige]

Originally Posted by Butterfingers Who ended up getting the better end of the deal? I cant understand that legal jargon.

We (the WGA) got far less than we asked for, but actually did a good bit better than I thought we would when the strike started.

The contract is pretty good in many areas (especially for feature writers).

Barring the inmates taking over the asylum on Tuesday and voting to extend the strike, it should all be over on Wednesday.

And the showrunners are going back to work in the morning to get their TV shows back up and running.

[leroy]

Originally Posted by Surfguy There's a simple way to handle the 24 issue. So, there isn't enough time to complete each episode without tacking on several more weeks. Have Jack take a nap for a few hours. :D

He could get a good night sleep. Get a full 10 hours in and then you only have to worry about 6 more hours. Then I'd watch.

The only one I'm truly concerned with is to see a proper ending for Scrubs.