Strikes

The tentative settlement reached this week between the Directors Guild and producers bolstered hopes that talks would resume in the writers strike, but it wasn't enough to relieve the queasy reality settling on Hollywood that the Academy Awards may go the way of the celebrity-free ratings downer that was Sunday's Golden Globes. However, Gilbert Cates, producer of the award telecast, remains adamant that on Feb.

Spurred by the day-old employment contract signed by the Directors Guild of America, Hollywood's writers and the major studios agreed Friday to resume talks, hoping to reach an agreement that would end the nearly 11-week-old strike, according to several people close to the matter. Writers Guild of America leaders plan to meet as early as Tuesday with News Corp. President Peter Chernin and possibly other top executives, reviving talks that studios broke off early last month, the people said.

WHEN NBC's Golden Globes telecast devolved into a fiasco earlier this month, with ratings skidding more than 70%, it seemed to hammer home the conventional wisdom about the writers strike. The strike by the Writers Guild of America, you'll recall, was supposed to be a disaster for TV ratings. Once they realized their favorite shows were no longer airing original episodes, angry and bereft viewers would go berserk, smash their flat-screens and spend all their newfound free time on Facebook.com.

Reactions to Academy Award nominations announced Tuesday became an intricate mix of hope and despair, as the usual feelings of joyful gratitude clashed with continuing fears about the nearly 3-month-old writers strike that has shaken Hollywood to its core.

The 50th Annual Grammy Awards will not have a picket line waiting for the limos. The board of directors of the Writers Guild of America, West, said Tuesday it had voted not to publicly protest the music industry's annual award show, scheduled for Feb. 10 at Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. This month, after the Golden Globes telecast collapsed when the Screen Actors Guild said it would advise its members not to cross a writers' picket line, the producers of the Grammys launched a very public campaign to distance "music's biggest night" from the divisive issues that are at the center of the 11-week WGA strike.

Hollywood's striking writers, signaling a possible thaw in the 3-month-old labor dispute, have agreed to drop two demands that studios have long viewed as non-starters. Leaders of the Writers Guild of America told top studio chiefs during a meeting Tuesday that they would ditch previous proposals to unionize writers who work on animated movies and reality TV shows.

The striking writers behind Jon Stewart's fake news show and Stephen Colbert's fake talk show came here to explain to real lawmakers Wednesday a strike that has crippled creative television and threatens to wreck the Oscars. But knowing it can be difficult to get a lawmaker's attention when not in a Learjet or on the links, the brains behind two of Comedy Central's most-watched shows couched the issues in terms Washington could understand: a mock debate.

As the writers strike drags on, there's at least one small corner of the industry that hasn't been grinding to a halt over the last months: literary departments at the major talent agencies, which are getting inundated with book proposals and story ideas for novels from out-of-work screenwriters.

This was going to be the CW's breakthrough year. The little TV network was full of promise five months ago on the eve of its second season. Advertisers and even curmudgeonly TV critics were gushing over its new fall shows. Buzz on the Internet was wild in anticipation of the much-hyped "Gossip Girl," a soapy drama about pampered prep school students in Manhattan. But instead of catching fire, the CW's new crop of shows flickered in the ratings.

The West Coast board of the Writers Guild of America has reacted favorably to the outlines of a pending agreement reached between guild negotiators and Hollywood studios. But the board is holding off on giving its blessing until it sees the exact language in the contract, according to people familiar with the situation. The 19-member board was briefed Monday by union leaders on the major points in a tentative deal reached Friday.