DGA, studios reach a deal

The Directors Guild of America today clinched a much-anticipated deal with the major studios that will put increased pressure on writers to follow suit and end a 12-week-old strike that has roiled Hollywood.

In a new three-year contract, directors negotiated a better deal than what studios had initially offered writers, including higher royalties for online sales of their movies and TV shows.

Disputes over how writers should be paid when their shows are distributed over the Internet, cellphones and other new media have been the central sticking point in failed negotiations between studios and writers.

With the directors' deal complete, pressure now shifts to the leaders of the Writers Guild of America to use that agreement as a basis for concluding their own deal, which would bring to a close the industry’s costliest strike in two decades.

The walkout shut down the television industry and upended the awards season. In Hollywood, contracts are often determined through “pattern bargaining,” where the first union to negotiate a deal sets the template for the other unions.

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-- Richard Verrier and Claudia Eller

Deal said to be near

The Directors Guild of America and major Hollywood studios are expected to conclude a closely watched deal on a new three-year contract within 24 hours, according to a number of people close to the negotiations.

The agreement covering 13,400 directors is said to include better new-media terms than studios proposed to writers in negotiations that broke down last month.

Writers Guild of America officials have stressed that they will consider the deal carefully but won’t be bound by terms negotiated by another union. The dispute between writers and studios centers on how much writers would be paid for work distributed over the Internet.

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-- Richard Verrier and Claudia Eller

Grammys ask for a waiver

Today the producers of the 50th Annual Grammy Awards requested an interim agreement from the Writers Guild of America for the Feb. 10 telecast of the awards, according to a statement from The Recording Academy, which owns the Grammy Awards but does not produce the show.

In the statement, Recording Academy President Neil Portnow affirms that he met with WGA President Patric Verrone on Jan. 8 to discuss the awards. He reveals that producers Cossette Productions requested the waiver from the WGA, which would  allow WGA writers to participate, and ensure that the broadcast would not be picketed.

Read more at the Extended Play blog by Todd Martens:

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WGA gives Image Awards a break

The show will go on for the 39th NAACP Image Awards. The WGA agreed Tuesday to give the Feb. 14 show a waiver that allows writers to script the show and keep the picketers away.

Here is the press release:

LOS ANGELES – The Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) announced today at a press conference that it will sign an interim agreement with the NAACP for The 39th NAACP Image Awards, which will take place on February 14, 2008, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

The agreement will allow the hiring of WGA writers to script the show and means that there will be no picketing of the event by striking writers. In addition, the Guild has granted a waiver permitting the use of clips from motion pictures and television programs.

"The NAACP would like to thank the leadership of the WGA and its members for demonstrating their support of the NAACP and its historic mission by granting The NAACP Image Awards an interim agreement," said Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP. "The NAACP stands in solidarity with the Writers Guild in its fight for meaningful collective bargaining and the rights of all workers to make an honest and fair living."

Speaking at the press conference were Patric M. Verrone, president of the WGA West, NAACP Image Awards Committee Chair Clayola Brown, Vicangelo Bulluck, executive producer of the show, and WGA members Robert Eisele (screenwriter, The Great Debaters, executive producer, Resurrection Blvd.) and Mara Brock Akil (creator and executive producer, Girlfriends, The Game).

“The Guild examines each request like this individually and no decision is easy. Our ultimate goal is to resolve this strike by achieving a good contract. Because of the historic role the NAACP has played in struggles like ours, we think this decision is appropriate to jointly achieve our goals,” said Verrone.

Presented annually, the NAACP Image Awards is the nation’s premier event celebrating the outstanding achievements and performances of people of color in the arts as well as those individuals or groups who promote social justice.

Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization.  Its half-million adult and youth members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities and monitors of equal opportunity in the public and private sectors. For more information on the NAACP and the NAACP Image Awards visit www.naacpimageawards.net.

-- Maria Elena Fernandez

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WGA to Grammys: Don't hold your breath

There's been no WGA waiver granted for the Grammys so far, and one isn't likely to be on the horizon, according to a spokesman for the Writers Guild of America. That could set the stage for another picket line -- and for another awards show to tumble.

"The [Recording Academy] has not asked the WGA for a waiver or interim agreement for the Grammys," said WGA spokesman Gregg Mitchell. "While no guild decision has yet been made regarding the  Grammys, if a waiver is requested for the Grammys, it is unlikely to be granted."

Read more at the Extended Play blog by Todd Martens.

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Guild signs interim pact with Media Rights Capital

The Writers Guild of America has signed an interim agreement with Media Rights Capital, a new independent film finance and production company. The company, which works with such creative artists as Larry David and Ricky Gervais, is financing various films, TV shows and several original online programs, including animated shows by  "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane.

"This is an exciting agreement that will open up opportunities for writers, especially in new media," said Patric M. Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America, West, and Michael Winship, president of the Writers Guild of America, East. "We know that Guild members will be eager to be a part of the MRC creative team."

The guild also has signed similar agreements with David Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants, the Weinstein Co. and United Artists. The agreements contain terms that Hollywood's striking writers were seeking in talks with studios that collapsed last month and are intended to apply pressure on studios to return to the bargaining table.

The agreements, however, will be superseded by any deal the guild eventually strikes with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

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-- Richard Verrier

Few watch NBC's Globes coverage

This is what happens when stars don't come to pick up their awards.

Sunday's Golden Globes "announcement" telecast, a one-hour version of the annual ceremony that was severely truncated and celebrity-free due to the Writers Guild of America strike, delivered the show's lowest ratings in 13 years. NBC's 9 p.m. telecast hosted by "Access Hollywood's" Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell averaged 5.8 million total viewers for a distant fourth-place finish in the time period and a 71% dive from last year's Globes, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen Media Research. It was the least-watched Globes since 1995, when 3.6 million watched the show on TBS. A pre-Globes "Dateline" special likewise performed poorly (5.2 million).

Clearly, viewers migrated elsewhere for the evening. Thanks in part to a healthy lead-in from the Giants and Cowboys divisional playoff game, Fox's sci-fi drama "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" was the most-watched series premiere this season (18.3 million total viewers), although the show shed 13% of its audience during the hour. On CBS, the first of three parts of the western miniseries "Comanche Moon" averaged 15.8 million viewers, the best numbers for any made-for-network movie in more than two years.

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-- Scott Collins

SAG-AFTRA feud escalates over 'Phase 1'

A feud between Hollywood’s two actors unions boiled over this weekend after the Screen Actors Guild's board of directors urged members to vote down a longstanding agreement with its sister union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

SAG's board voted Saturday to hold a referendum on whether to end the so-called Phase 1 agreement under which the two unions have been jointly negotiating TV and theatrical contracts since 1981. Under the agreement, the unions have equal voting rights when it comes to negotiating the main TV and film contract for actors.

DGA prez to members: Deal could be near

Directors Guild of America President Michael Apted suggests in a note to DGA members that a deal on a new contract with the AMPTP could be near:

I am writing to inform you that with the unanimous agreement of the Negotiations Committee and the recommendation of Negotiations Chairman Gil Cates, I have authorized the start of formal negotiations with the AMPTP and we will begin our first negotiations session tomorrow.

As I have stated before, we would not enter negotiations with the AMPTP unless we were within shouting distance of an agreement on our two most important issues: jurisdiction for our members to work in new media and appropriate compensation for the reuse of our work on the Internet and other new media platforms.   

We've spent the last few months discussing these and related issues with the studios and we've been doing intensive research on these points for the past year and a half. Now we believe it is time to move forward with the goal to hammer out an agreement. I am very mindful of how many members are unemployed and believe that our reaching a deal will bring the industry closer to getting back to work.

There are still hurdles to jump. However, we would not be going forward unless we believed we could make a good deal. 

As is our practice, once we enter negotiations tomorrow, there will be a total news blackout on the talks. As soon as there is anything definitive to report we will be in touch with the membership.

Sincerely,

Michael Apted

    

WGA and SAG 'wish everyone the best' in DGA talks

The Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild had this to say about the news that the Directors Guild has begun its negotiations:

We wish the DGA well and hope that they achieve a fair deal that incorporates principles that will benefit all creative artists. The DGA has to do what is best for its membership, but it is important to remember that they do not represent actors and writers.

NBC fires back at Dick Clark Productions

The fight over the Golden Globes implosion, like a skirmish in a schoolyard sandbox, keeps producing a flurry of he said/she said, or, since these are entertainment companies bickering, it said/it said.

After Dick Clark Productions said earlier that NBC wanted rights to the telecast of the Globes news conference, to the exclusion of other electronic media, "yet was unwilling to pay a nominal license fee to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Dick Clark Productions," NBC responded.

The network dismissed the statement by Dick Clark Productions as "grossly inaccurate," saying the company demanded a license fee "north of seven figures." The network said it considering all of its options, including possible legal recourse, to address a possible breach of contract by the company, with which it has a contract to produce the Golden Globe Awards telecast.

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-- Matea Gold and Kate Aurthur

Dick Clark Productions demands freedom of the press

The Golden Globes finger-pointing continued throughout Friday afternoon. Here's what a spokesman for Dick Clark Productions announced about why the Sunday press conference has been thrown open to the larger media pool, rather than being an NBC exclusive:

"NBC wanted to have an exclusive three-hour broadcast special disguised as a news conference that would bar all other media, and yet was unwilling to pay a nominal license fee to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Dick Clark Productions.  The HFPA and Dick Clark Productions felt this arrangement was unfair and unacceptable and therefore opened up the event to all media."

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