AMPTP releases latest proposal to WGA after guild meets with studio CEOs
President Carol Lombardini says the studios’ offer is “responsible to overriding concerns expressed by the writers”
This could be a major breakthrough in the three-month Hollywood strike: After meeting with heads of the Writers Guild of America on Tuesday, Hollywood studios CEOs released details of their new proposal and offered writers significant concessions to minimum, AI – and viewer data.
The details come from the proposal AMPTP submitted to the guild on August 11, ahead of the resumption of daily contract negotiations.
Regarding artificial intelligence, AMPTP’s latest proposal prohibits content created by generative AI software from being considered “literary material” and includes guarantees that “authors’ remuneration, credit, and proprietary rights will be protected by the use of GAI-produced material will not be affected”.
AMPTP also offers to provide the WGA with viewership data for the first time in the form of “Quarterly Confidential Reports” that include total hours watched for each streaming title. The AMPTP says that this data “will enable the WGA to develop proposals for restructuring the current SVOD residual regime in the future.”
AMPTP calls the proposal “a comprehensive package that addresses all of the issues that the Guild has identified as its top priorities,” adding that it believes the proposal “recognizes the fundamental role authors play in the industry, and that Underscores corporate commitment to ending the strike.”
A person with knowledge of Monday’s meeting said the AMPTP had informed the WGA that it would make its proposal public. President Carol Lombardini says it is proof the studios are determined to end the strike, which has been going on for 113 days.
TheWrap has reached out to WGA for comment.
According to the press release, details of the proposal include:
- An overall increase of 13% over the three-year contract, with a 5% increase in the first year; 4% in the second year; and 3.5% in the third year.
- A 15% increase in weekly minimum rates for Article 14 authors
(other than Story Editors or Executive Story Editors) in the first year of the agreement with further general wage increases in the second and third years of the agreement. - And increase the remaining amounts from $72,067 to $87,546 per episode for 3 years of exhibition.
- Showrunners would be allowed to select “a minimum of two mid-level writers for production, each guaranteed a minimum 20-week tenure (unless the production run is shorter).”
- A guaranteed tenure of at least 10 weeks and a 43% week-to-week increase in weekly wages for Article 14 writers (other than story editors or executive story editors). According to AMPTP, that would be an increase from $9,888 per week to $14,214.
- Content created by so-called “Artificial Intelligence” software “is not considered literary material,” and if any part of a screenplay is based on such content, “the author’s remuneration, credit, and separate rights are not infringed.” “
- AMPTP says it will, for the first time, share viewership data with WGA members “in the form of quarterly confidential reports…comprising total SVOD viewing hours per title.” AMPTP’s proposal adds that the data will be used by the Guild could in order to “restructure” leftovers “in the future”.
There’s more to come…
