Writers' Negotiations Are Down to the Wire

Nov 05, 06:44 AM

Current Headlines: By GARY GENTILE

By Gary Gentile

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

Hollywood writers were back at the bargaining table Sunday in a last-minute push to avoid a strike against TV networks and movie studios over writers' share of profits from DVDs and the Internet.

The battle has broad implications for the way Hollywood does business, since whatever deal is struck by the Writers Guild of America will likely be used as a template for talks with actors and directors, whose contracts expire in June.

Negotiators were meeting with a federal mediator Sunday evening in hopes of avoiding a strike that writers had set to begin 12:01 a.m. PST today.

The guild announced plans to picket every major studio in Los Angeles starting at 9 a.m. today, along with Rockefeller Center in New York .

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers previously called a writers' strike "precipitous and irresponsible."

Producers believe progress can be made on other issues but "it makes absolutely no sense to increase the burden of this additional compensation," said J. Nicholas Counter, the producers' chief negotiator.

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