Writers Resume Talks, Agree to News Blackout

Striking scriptwriters and producers resumed their federally mediated negotiations Sunday with a news blackout on talks the only announced agreement.

The negotiators for the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers resumed the talks shortly after 1 p.m. at the alliance’s headquarters in Sherman Oaks.

The two sides in the sometimes rancorous five-month-old strike met for the first time in a month for a nearly 13-hour-long session that began Saturday afternoon and ended early Sunday.

Writers and producers agreed to a request by federal mediator Leonard Farrell not to discuss the talks with reporters.

Compromise Rejected

Previous talks ended in June with scriptwriters coast-to-coast overwhelmingly rejecting a compromise offer from producers.

The major sticking point since before writers walked off the job March 7 has been the share of money they make when hour-long television shows go into reruns and residuals from foreign markets

Despite some internal dissension, the 9,000-plus member guild has remained firm in its demand for a bigger cut of residual profits, and has divided producers’ ranks by getting some independent filmmakers to defect, allowing them to hire writers under separate contracts granting guild demands.

Television networks, their fall schedules in shambles, have insisted they will broadcast a new fall programming even if they have to refilm old scripts with new stars.