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American Morning

Hollywood Writers Continue Talks With Entertainment Companies

Aired May 02, 2001 - 12:14   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Hollywood's writers are still on the job after their contract expired last night. But talks between the entertainment industry and the Writers Guild continued into the early hours of the morning and they are set to resume this afternoon. For the latest on all this, let's go now to CNN's Sherri Sylvester. She is standing by in Los Angeles.

Hi, Sherri.

SHERRI SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Leon. And at this hour, we are waiting for the writers and producers to come back to the bargaining table. They were here until 3:00 a.m. They went home to get a little bit of sleep, and they're going to come back and try to hammer out the details of a contract that is acceptable to the members of the Writers Guild.

The big sticking points right now: economic issues when -- there is a news blackout. But when last we heard from both sides, which was April 17, they were about $100 million apart on the financial residuals. Now two- thirds of the writers in the guild are television writers. They're looking for residuals when it come comes to DVDs, video cassette, Internet and overseas airings of their work.

The film side, the film guys, are looking for more creative respect. They are negotiating separately -- the creative issues are being negotiated separately from the financial issues with different teams talking. They're looking for, you know, first chance at their own rewrites. They want to be included on the set and included in the discussions and see their work through creatively. So, that's what we're dealing with here.

We'll let you know how the talks are coming out when they get back to the bargaining table. No matter what, they are going to have to have a vote among the membership. And most people believe that vote would take about two days: the vote to either ratify a new contract or to authorize a strike.

HARRIS: Well, Sherri, let me ask you something about the fall schedule. From what I'm hearing, it seems as though the fall schedule has already been affected by this, even if this strike gets settled in the next week or so, or next couple of days or so.

SYLVESTER: Absolutely. When the strike hit in 1988, a lot of the network executives were caught off guard and they had no programming ready for the fall. And so this time they decided that they weren't going to be caught off guard. They did go ahead and spend a lot of their budgets for 2001 on reality programming, which is strike-proof because there are no writers required. They spent a lot of money on news magazines to get those geared up. Game shows. And so, the fall schedule is set in a lot of ways.

Now, they're still trying to decide, you know, which of those sitcoms and dramas are going to be able to begin production and be on the fall schedule.

And this is the time of year when they usually make up that fall schedule, so they can start that promotion wheel this summer. So there is going to be a long-term effect no matter what.

HARRIS: All right, thanks much. Sherri Sylvester reporting live for us this morning, or this afternoon, from Los Angeles. We'll see you in a bit.

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