A sign outside the Writers Guild offices in Los Angeles, Oct. 10, 2007. Hollywood writers announced on Friday their plans to go on strike for the first time in nearly 20 years to get such residual payment as those for movies and TV series sold on DVDs. --Reuters

Hollywood writers announced yesterday their plans to go on strike for the first time in nearly 20 years to get such residual payment as those for movies and TV series sold on DVDs.

Members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) met on Friday morning here in a bid to reach a last-minute agreement with producers, but nothing concrete came out of the meeting, WGA officials said.

"In recent years, these conglomerates have enjoyed tremendous financial success off the backs of literally tens of thousands of people, including members of the creative community," Patric Verrone, president of the WGA, said in announcing plans for the strike which will start at 12:01 a.m. local time on Monday.

"One part of that community is the writers, whose work serves as the blueprint for television programs and motion pictures," Verrone said. "And although the industry's pie is continually growing, our share continues to shrink. Rather than address our members' primary concerns, studios made clear that they would rather shut down this town than reach a fair and reasonable deal."

The writers were fighting for a sharp increase in residual payments for movies and television series sold on DVDs, and pay schedules for programming shown on the Internet, cellular telephones and other new media outlets.

WGA members voted by a 9-1 margin last month to authorize its leadership to declare a strike. Guild leaders told about 3,000 members gathered at the Los Angeles Convention Center Thursday night that there would be a strike.

J. Nicholas Counter III, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPT), which represents the movie studios and television networks, said he was dismayed by the union’s actions.

"We are very disappointed with their press conference and the action they took," Counter said. "Their press conference was full of falsehoods, misstatements and inaccuracies, and we'll respond at an appropriate time."

Counter said on Thursday the producers were "ready to meet and are prepared to close this contract this weekend."

WGA officials said a walkout could still be avoided if an accord can be reached in the next two days, but as of Friday, no new talks were scheduled. Negotiations between the guild and alliance broke off Wednesday without an agreement being reached. The previous agreement expired at midnight Wednesday.

Teamsters Union boss Jim Hoffa has said his members support the writers "as the fuel that keeps the multibillion-dollar motion picture and television industry driving," and will honor picket lines, which will complicate and likely shut down some productions, even if the script is already written.

Counter has called the guild's proposals untenable.

"We need relief from soaring costs, rising deficits and restrictive contract provisions and instead the WGA gives us untenable proposals that further raise costs and encumber our ability to adapt to these revolutionary times," Counter said.

The WGA Negotiating Committee issued a statement accusing the alliance of not responding "to a single one of our important proposals" since negotiations began July 16.

"Every issue that matters to writers, including Internet reuse, original writing for new media, DVDs and jurisdiction, has been ignored," the statement said. "This is completely unacceptable."

The gulf between the two sides, the writers' anger over past contracts and their animosity toward management all have led to predictions of a long strike.

The first casualty of a strike would be late-night talk shows, which likely would be forced into reruns in the event of a writers strike.

Primetime programming is unlikely to be affected until January because of episodes that have already been produced, but not aired. Additional episodes can be made using scripts that have been completed, but not filmed or taped yet.

A WGA strike in 1988 caused a major disruption in the entertainment industry. It lasted 22 weeks and cost the industry an estimated 500 million U.S. dollars.

"If it (cost the industry) 500 million dollars in 1988, a slowdown of that length would have over a 1 billion dollars impact today," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told the Los Angeles Times. "I'm very concerned."