Major Progress in Writers' Strike Talks

After weeks of stalled talks, negotiators in the entertainment writers' strike have suddenly made "substantial progress" in their discussions, people with knowledge of the talks said yesterday, raising hopes in Hollywood that a settlement could come as early as this week.

Representatives of the Writers Guild of America and the major movie studios and TV networks appear to have tentatively resolved the major issues that led the labor union's 10,500 members to walk out on Nov. 5, sources said.

Both sides have agreed to a media blackout regarding negotiations, and officials from the guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers declined to comment yesterday.

"No one will say it's done," a person with knowledge of the discussions said, but a "staggering amount" of progress was made Friday after nine hours of informal discussions in Los Angeles. The next step, the person said, is to get the results of the negotiation on paper. "Until it's on paper, no one is saying anything" publicly, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the no-comment agreement.

A settlement would restart production of TV dramas and sitcoms, which ground to a halt not long after writers on both coasts walked out 13 weeks ago. A quick resolution would enable the broadcast networks to wind up this disrupted TV season with at least some original fare. However, industry executives say that, even if a deal is struck in the next few days, it could take a few weeks for benched series to get going again.

With television production effectively shut down in Hollywood and in much of New York, the networks have filled their prime-time schedules with reruns and "reality" series, some of which had been ordered as part of the networks' strike contingency plans. Movie production has been less impaired.

A more immediate beneficiary of a quick settlement would be the Feb. 24 Academy Awards telecast. The Screen Actors Guild has said that its members will not attend the event if the writers are still on strike, a move that probably would reduce the Oscars to a glamour-less, celebrity-free event. That fate befell NBC's broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards last month and sent its ratings plunging.

Word of progress in the negotiations, including a report yesterday on the New York Times Web site, set off a flurry of optimistic e-mails in the entertainment industry. Although several people said a deal could be announced as soon as late yesterday, those hopes were quickly dashed. The two sides have yet to commit their agreement to writing.

A member of the guild who writes TV comedies sounded a skeptical note. "I'm hopeful but wary, as these types of early, optimistic rumors have been deliberately seeded by the [producers] in the past to artificially raise and then dash our hopes as a bargaining bludgeon," said the writer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Writers Guild's negotiating committee has scheduled a videoconference for tomorrow to discuss developments. Any settlement proposal would have to be ratified by the guild's members.

The negotiations got a boost on Friday, sources said, when Peter Chernin, the president of News Corp., returned from London and rejoined the talks. Chernin's company owns the 20th Century Fox movie studio and the Fox broadcast network, and he is one of the powerful moguls leading the discussions, along with Robert A. Iger, the chief executive of the Walt Disney Co., as well as Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS.

The studios walked away from negotiations on Dec. 7. But Chernin and Iger resumed informal talks with top Writers Guild officials on Jan. 22 after producers reached an agreement with the Directors Guild of America.

Writers have been seeking bigger fees, known as residuals, from the sale of home videos, and compensation from Internet downloads and streaming of TV programs and movies. The big stumbling block has been the precise formula for Internet residuals.