STRIKE: AN END IN SIGHT; CHERNIN TELLS PALS IT'S OVER; WRITERS COULD STILL FACE A HOSTILE HOLLYWOOD (VAR, DHD, NYT)

By Nancy Vialatte

With a breakthrough on the key issue of Internet streaming, the WGA and the studios are generating cautious optimism that an end to the 3-month-old writers strike may soon be at hand. "It's not a done deal, by any means," a well-placed insider told Variety regarding Friday�s talks sessions. Meanwhile, on Sunday, other sources told Nikki Finke that News Corp. president Peter Chernin was telling Hollywood folk attending the Super Bowl that "the strike is over."

Over the weekend, lawyers and other reps for the WGA and the AMPTO were reportedly exchanging draft proposals for contract language. The terms of streaming are said to be slightly different from those in the DGA agreement, but agreeable to both sides.

At meetings that had been previously scheduled, the WGA West's board of directors and the WGA's negotiating committee will get updates today on the status of the weekend's talks.

However, WGA West and East presidents Patric Verrone and Michael Winship sent an email to members Sunday flatly denying that a deal was in place.

The memo said:

While fully mindful of the continuing media blackout, we write you to address the rumors and reports that undoubtedly you have been hearing.

The facts: we are still in talks and do not yet have a contract. When and if a tentative agreement is reached, the first thing we will do is alert our membership with an e-mail message. Until then, please disregard rumors about either the existence of an agreement or its terms.

Until we have reached an agreement with the AMPTP, it is essential that we continue to show our resolve, solidarity, and strength.

Picketing will resume on Monday. Our leverage at the bargaining table is directly affected by your commitment to our cause. Please continue to show your support on the line. We are all in this together.

Still, this is the first sign of significant movement after weeks of stalemate.

The pressure of the calendar undoubtedly weighed heavily in the room on Friday. Top TV execs have viewed Feb. 15 as the drop-dead date for salvaging any of the remaining TV season and for pilot season. In film, early March has been seen as the cutoff date for avoiding major disruptions to 2009 release skeds; an end to the strike would permit script tweaking on a number of pics involving pay-or-play deals for top stars that will come due regardless of whether the strike continues. (VAR)

Once the two sides have the key portions of a draft contract in hand, it will be brought to the WGA's 17-member negotiating committee. If they recommend it, the WGAW board of directors and WGAE council will vote on the deal, which would then be sent to the guild's 10,500 members for a ratification vote.

Sources on both sides were quick to praise the diplomatic contributions of lawyer Alan Wertheimer, who was retained by the WGA to help hash out a definition for the "distributor's gross" term that is key to the contract's compensation formulas, notes Variety.

The big question looming is how the WGAW board will react to a pact that includes compromises on the new-media compensation terms that the guild sought at the start of contract talks.

It is understood that the WGA and AMPTP have agreed that in the interest of time, the sides will not reconvene in "formal" bargaining sessions but will continue on in the small-group setting that yielded Friday's progress.

Related Links

Strike: An end in sight? (VAR)
Chernin Tells Super Pals
WGA To Writers: Still Talking To Moguls (DHD)
Strike May End Soon, but Writers May Confront a Hostile Hollywood (NYT)