Town on tenterhooks as AFTRA, AMPTP fail to reach deal on Tuesday (VAR, DHD, THR)

By Nancy Tartaglione-Vialatte

As of late Tuesday, no deal between AFTRA and the AMPTP had emerged, much to the consternation of the rest of Hollywood. After three weeks of talks � and with SAG champing at the bit to resume its negotiations today - AFTRA and the studios had been widely expected to announce a tentative agreement.

Much of the negotiations have been devoted to a single issue - the companies� proposal that actors agree to drop the consent requirement for online clips - and momentum has stalled on small details in recent sessions, says Variety.

For its part, SAG told members last week: �They (AMPTP members) are now seeking to reach back into their vaults and release non-promotional clips and sell them for use in various new-media platforms. As proposed, they want to use clips form all motion pictures and television shows produced to date and into through the future without your consent�While the companies have proposed nominal, nonnegotiable payments for the use, your right to consent and negotiate would be gone if we accept this proposal.�

Whether or not AFTRA�s talks would be extended into today to wrap up the negotiations was unclear. However, it is understood the AMPTP has made it clear it won�t give AFTRA another specific date for resuming talks and will instead spend the next several weeks negotiating with SAG.

The SAG and AFTRA deals expire June 30. The lack of resolution in the wake of the 100-day writers strike, has left the town, weary from a 100-day writers� strike - on tenterhooks.

SAG�s negotiating committee met late Tuesday at guild headquarters and president Alan Rosenberg sent a message to members that chastised AFTRA for allowing SAG reps to attend only 6 of the 18 days it spent negotiating.

�We don�t have any details about the status of the talks except that AFTRA and the AMPTP are continuing to meet today, and we will resume our negotiations at 10 a.m. at the AMPTP tomorrow morning.

Your National Negotiating Committee remains committed to getting the best terms possible for actors�The main outstanding issues remain the same as they were in early May,� Rosenberg wrote.

Regarding the comments, an AFTRA insider told DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com:

�While it�s certainly true that the SAG representatives (along with observers from other unions) were excluded from �executive session� meetings of the AFTRA Negotiating Committee, things were no different during the SAG talks -- AFTRA observers were not permitted to sit in on the SAG negotiating committee�s executive sessions�. There are times when, for legal reasons, a negotiating committee needs to meet privately. We understood and respected SAG�s need for such privacy, and we assumed that the SAG observers would understand and respect ours. Perhaps that was too much to expect.�