Just after midnight on Tuesday May 2, the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) reached a tentative deal and averted a strike.
In addition to more payments into the health care plan and new parental leave options, the WGA was successful in redefining terms for short season programs and how writers for those programs are compensated. With the new contract, short season writers would be paid more if work on a episode extends past 2.4 weeks. Previous contracts had no definitions in place for short seasons, and writers were losing income.
Residual payments are also bumped up for streaming and premium cable programs and for the first time variety show writers for premium cable programs will also receive residual payments.
The memo sent to WGA membership early this morning did not mention terms for other items of debate such as the exclusivity issue.
With a tentative deal in place and a strike averted, news on television renewals and fall premier schedules will move forward as originally planned. Announcements from ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and TheCW will all come before the end of next week.
Written by LadyShelley on May 2, 2017
Fantastic news! Thankfully no repeat to the last Writer's Guild Strike in 2010. I remember a lot of my favorite shows were dynamically cut short (Breaking Bad comes to mind).
Glad that this was solved, do not want to miss out on my favorite shows :)