The Writers Guild of America has suspended its strike, pending a new deal reached with television and film studios over distribution of content online. The writers will now receive 2% of the gross revenue earned by the studios from online advertising. Union leaders suspended picketing earlier today, and will vote on whether to formally end the strike Tuesday February 12th.
The writers returning to work is certainly good news for TV viewers. Over the last three months, the airwaves have been awash with re-runs and “alternative” programming. Ratings for many popular shows have suffered, and several new programs had their growing momentum stifled by the sudden walkout by the writers.
InformationWeek is reporting that the Writers Guild of America successfully negotiated a new three-year contract, which provides residual royalty payments for digital broadcasts and 2% of the advertising revenue from Internet distributed content. Streaming video, however, will be exempt from the deal for 24 days after a show’s initial air date.
The union voted to strike more than three months ago over a contract dispute which left television and film writers without compensation for their contribution to Internet created content. In other words, the networks were making money online by “re-purposing” television shows and films online — without compensating the writers.
The new deal, which has been tentatively approved by both Hollywood producers and union leaders, will be put to the WGA membership for an official vote as soon as tomorrow. Union leaders expressed confidence in the new deal, and are recommending their members approve the contract.
Although a full proxy vote by the WGA membership can take as long as two weeks to confirm, the union leadership is confident that at least some of the striking writers can return to work later this week, perhaps even by this Wednesday.
The real question now is whether the 14 week strike was worth it? Did the writers Union achieve their objectives?
Howard Rodman, a member of the Guild’s board of directors, said “it’s the best deal we could have gotten under the circumstances.” Rodman contends that without the strike, and the new three-year contract, writers would have been left out all of the shift taking place from old media (televisions for example), two new media (Internet and wireless phone content). “It… [The strike] …accomplished the main goal we wanted when we set out on strike.”
So for the time being, it seems that everyone is happy, and television and film studio production can resume as normal. Well, almost — the screen actors Guild contract expires in four months.
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