SACRAMENTO — With ratification of a hard-fought contract imminent, the Writers Guild of America has shifted its fight with movie and television studios to a new front: the state Legislature.
The guild and two labor allies, the Screen Actors Guild and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, on Monday announced that they were sponsoring a bill that could boost their share of revenues when programs are licensed to be shown on affiliated cable networks or stations.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, February 27, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 54 words Type of Material: Correction
Hollywood legislation: An article in Tuesday's Business section about a bill in the state Legislature dealing with licensing fees for television, film and radio productions said the Screen Actors Guild supported it. A spokesman for the Screen Actors Guild said the group was reviewing the language of the bill but had not endorsed it.
At issue is the contention that Hollywood's six major studios charge their co-owned affiliates, including cable networks, artificially low prices to rerun popular shows. Such discounting means that writers, actors, directors and other creative workers get less money in the form of residual payments that are calculated as a percentage of the license price, the Writers Guild contends.
Tension between screenwriters and production companies and movie studios over alleged below-market licensing agreements has been building for years. Studios have been hit with lawsuits involving the sale of reruns for a number of popular television shows, including "Home Improvement," "NYPD Blue," "The X-Files" and "Will and Grace."
The Teamsters union, which represents some craftsmen working on movie sets, argues that alleged studio self-dealing reduces the flow of contributions into union health and welfare funds.
Patric M. Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America, West, said the proposed legislation would bring "reliable accounting" and fair compensation for entertainment industry workers.
The two-paragraph bill would require that studios sell their affiliates the rights to films, TV series and radio shows only at the "fair market value" they would fetch in a competitive market.
The studios oppose the measure, SB1765, calling it an attempt to make an end run around recently concluded labor negotiations between the Writers Guild and the studios' bargaining group, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
"Now, while the WGA ratification process is still ongoing, the WGA is attempting to circumvent the process by seeking legislation in Sacramento," said Seth Oster, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Assn. of America, the lobbying and trade group of the studios.
The proposed Writers Guild contract was expected to be ratified Monday, with results set to be announced today. The agreement contains a provision requiring that residual payments for shows distributed online between units of the same company be based on the product's fair market value.
