WRITERS SIGN "SEPARATE BUT EQUAL" DEALS

WRITERS SIGN "SEPARATE BUT EQUAL" DEALS

Even as "informal" talks continued between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the WGA announced that it had reached separate deals with Canadian-based Lionsgate and Marvel Studios, a subsidiary of the company behind the Marvel superheroes characters. The deals are described as "interim" with "most favored nation" clauses that essentially mean that if the AMPTP negotiates a more beneficial contract for the producers, then that would supersede the current ones. The deal with Lionsgate allows writers to resume work on the Showtime hit Weeds and AMC's Mad Men. More important, Lionsgate is the first movie distributor to sign a separate deal with the WGA. Meanwhile, today's (Friday) New York Times reported that the strike has still not had a significant effect on the bottom line of the major networks, whose primetime ratings "have not dipped in a meaningful way," according to the newspaper, which noted that ratings traditionally dip in December and January. Advertisers have not taken advantage of options in their contracts that would have allowed them to cancel their commitments because of the strike, Michael Parent, head of the national broadcast unit at TargetCast TCM ad agency, told the Times.

25/01/2008