SAG makes deal for actors on Web series

The Screen Actors Guild announced Friday that it signed a contract to cover performers on “quarterlife,” a Web series that will debut Nov. 11 on MySpaceTV.com, the video page for the popular social networking site.

Billed as the most ambitious stand-alone Web project to date, the series is being produced by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the Emmy-winning creators of TV hits “My So-Called Life” and “thirtysomething.”

The move represents the most high-profile effort to date by SAG to extend union pay rates and health insurance benefits to actors who work on Internet shows.

Most Web programs are not covered under union agreements. Those agreements that do exist typically offer less favorable terms to actors than those applying to network programs, although guild officials declined to disclose terms.

“This is another sign that the Internet is maturing into a productive distribution channel for professionally produced content,” said Doug Allen, the union’s national executive director.

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 richard.verrier@latimes.com