(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-02-10 09:51

Breakthrough

The writers' deal is modeled largely on a separate labor pact for Hollywood directors that helped pave the way for the studios and the WGA to resume bargaining on January 23, after weeks of stalemate.

Both deals essentially double the re-use fees, or "residuals," paid for TV shows and films sold as Internet downloads, from about 0.3 percent of a distributor's gross revenues to roughly 0.7 percent.

But the WGA gained a modest improvement over the directors' deal on the key issue of paying writers for ad-supported online streaming of television shows.

A spokesman for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the bargaining arm of the studios, declined to comment.

The strike has thrown the US television industry into turmoil, derailed several movie productions and idled thousands of entertainment workers, from actors and directors to hairstylists, set designers and clerks.

The Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. has estimated the strike has cost the region's film and TV industry at least $650 million in wages, with over $1 billion more in lost earnings attributed to the ripple effect on the local economy.

The strike also has overshadowed the entertainment industry's annual awards season, even threatening to spoil the Oscars show later this month. Last month's Golden Globes awards ceremony was canceled after the actors' union said it would refuse to cross the writers' picket line.

The last major strike to hit Hollywood, a walkout by screenwriters in 1988, lasted 22 weeks and delayed the start of that year's fall television season.

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