Writers, Producers Meet but Strike Continues

Producers offered a pair of new proposals to striking writers Wednesday, but the key sticking point in the 80-day-old strike--residual payments for one-hour TV programs--continued to keep the authors of movies and television programs away from their typewriters.

In a five-hour session with federal mediator Leonard Farrell at the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers headquarters in Sherman Oaks, producers offered to change their contract offer from a three- to a four-year pact and to rework the controversial one-hour TV syndication residual formula in a manner that “addresses the objectives of both parties,” according to alliance spokesman Herb Steinberg.

They were the first new proposals made by the negotiating arm of the major studios and television networks since the strike began March 7.

Although he did not go into detail about the new formula, Writers Guild of America executive director Brian Walton called it “a cynical, cosmetic reworking of the proposal made to us on March 6.”

Guild negotiators had not met with producers at all since April 8, when they broke off talks after only 20 minutes. They agreed with Farrell’s request that they return to the table this week, meeting on Monday as well as Wednesday.

To Resume Saturday

Wednesday’s meeting ended with an agreement to resume the talks on Saturday.

Although the 17-member guild negotiating committee unanimously rejected the producers’ residuals formula, they are considering the contract extension, Walton said.

If approved, it would shift the contract expiration date from Feb. 28, 1991, to May 1, 1992.

The standoff on one-hour program residuals revolves around a cash-flow formula proposed by the alliance, which guild leaders said they believe will cut deeply into their members’ residual income in the future. Guild members also voted to walk off the job over the question of foreign residual payments and creative rights in script writing.

Today, the 9,000-member writers’ guild will hold general membership meetings in Hollywood and New York to decide whether to ratify several dozen contracts with independent production companies. According to writers’ guild spokeswoman Cheryl Rhoden, representatives of over 100 independent production companies have picked up blank contracts from guild headquarters this week and 39 had been signed and returned for ratification consideration as of Wednesday afternoon.

Results of the ratification vote will not be made public until Friday, Rhoden said.

Steinberg played down the ratification meetings, noting that independent production companies represent less than 10% of all film production and less than 15% of television production.

“We’d rather put 4,000 writers back to work than 400,” the alliance spokesman said.

The first independent production contract to be signed and returned to the guild offices was from Johnny Carson’s production company, guild President George Kirgo said. Since May 11, Carson has reportedly been writing his own monologues and other material for “The Tonight Show”--a task that was handled by eight guild writers prior to the strike.

Representatives of “Late Night With David Letterman” have also been negotiating with the guild independently of the alliance.

Another contract that was signed and returned early to the guild’s office was from Ken Kragen Productions. Kragen’s company and Ivan Reitman Productions where the only two companies that received dispensations from the guild early in the strike and were allowed to continue to use guild writers for their programming.

Despite the waiver, Kragen’s CBS series, “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” was among the programs that the network declined to renew for the fall season, it was announced Wednesday.