Tired of reruns? The TV season may be about to be rebooted.
Striking writers have reached a preliminary agreement with the major film studios and U.S. broadcast networks, several Los Angeles area media outlets reported over the weekend.
There has been no official announcement. Both sides have imposed a media blackout.
Several Los Angeles area radio stations reported a breakthrough in the negotiations late Saturday night, however. The Los Angeles Times reported in its Sunday editions that a deal is all but done, and an agreement could be signed as early as this Friday.
If ratified, the agreement means the show will go on at this year's Oscars. The Feb. 24 Academy Awards telecast was in jeopardy after striking writers announced they would picket the ceremony. Last month's Golden Globes ceremony was cancelled after nominated actors and scheduled presenters refused to cross writers' picket lines and boycotted the event.
An official settlement means new episodes of such popular TV programs as House, Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives could be back as soon as late March. Production on a new episode of a sitcom or drama can take up to six weeks. Network insiders have said privately that a resolution now will allow time for six new episodes to be made of such series as CSI and Law & Order, enough to finish out a shortened 2007-'08 season.
The latest round of negotiations between the Writers Guild of America, which represents 10,500 film and TV writers, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents such major media companies as NBC-Universal, Viacom/CBS, Warner Bros. Studios, Disney/ABC and 20th Century Fox, were jumpstarted after the Directors Guild of America reached an agreement on Jan. 17 after just five days of negotiations.
The directors' agreement put pressure on both sides to reach a quick settlement in a dispute that has dragged on for three months, with no end in sight.
The directors' contract is believed to have established a template for the writers' tentative agreement. Writers put down their pens on Nov. 5 over such issues as fair compensation for online video downloads and live streaming from the Internet. The tentative agreement is said to resolve key sticking points that were holding up a settlement.
The three-month dispute has cost the Hollywood film and TV industry an estimated $500 million in lost financial revenue. The strike caused a ripple effect that curtailed U.S.-based movie and TV production in Canada and resulted in widespread layoffs to below-the-line workers such as caterers, set decorators, make-up artists, electricians, cameramen and drivers.
A quick settlement will mean the 2008-'09 fall TV season can go ahead as originally planned. There will be fewer pilot episodes made of new series, however.
Pilot season, in which roughly 100 new series vie for 35 slots on the fall schedule, is traditionally staged in March and April. The U.S. networks unveil their fall schedules to advertisers in May, and the Canadian networks follow suit in June.
The media blackout remains in effect, and the writers are still officially on strike. The Los Angeles Times reported that the Writers Guild's lead negotiators will brief the union's negotiating committee and board of directors on Monday (Feb. 4), however, with contract language for the proposed agreement decided by the end of the week.
It will still take the union's members several days after that to ratify the agreement. The strike will likely be called off, however, if the union's leaders strongly endorse the deal, the Times reported.
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