The Writers Guild of America will put a strategy in action Monday to scatter the oppostion during these strike negotiations, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
The guild will propose bypassing AMPTP and negotiating separate contracts directly with the individual studios themselves. It's a very long shot as that scenario promises heaping piles of headaches across the industry. If each fantasy factory were to dictate unique terms with the WGA, there could be different royalty rates, different salary ranges, etc., from network to network, studio to studio.
In New York, David Letterman is doing his part to aid his writers while muddying the strike landscape. His Worldwide Pants production company negotiated a preliminary exemption allowing his writers to return to work. Could other TV production companies do the same by ignoring their network alliances to hire writers on their own dime? Could powerful, fan-rich shows like Galactica, Heroes or Lost return to the air with writing staff forged by similar exempt guild deals?
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"If each fantasy factory were to dictate unique terms with the WGA, there could be different royalty rates, different salary ranges, etc., from network to network, studio to studio."
That is not necessarily true, as whatever terms the WGA got with one company would probably likely end up as the overall terms. (The purpose of their move is break the logjam, and find studios willing to break out of the AMPTP rut.)
The Letterman deal isn't done yet, and there's no "muddying of the waters." Again, the WGA would sign a "favored nations" contract with Worldwide Pants, which means that once the AMPTP makes a deal Worldwide Pants would have the option of using the AMPTP basic agreement, or keep using whatever they agree to with the WGA currently.
"Could powerful, fan-rich shows like Galactica, Heroes or Lost return to the air with writing staff forged by similar exempt guild deals?"
No. Battlestar Galactica is owned by NBC Universal. (R&D Productions simply is like a contractor that produces the show for NBC/U and Sci-Fi Channel.) Since BSG is owned by NBC/U, it would take NBC/U forging a deal with the WGA for BSG and other NBC/U shows to get back to work.
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