Producers break off contract talks with actors

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/producers-break-off-contract-talks/story.aspx?guid=%7BD6DB9D24-8F02-4EA5-8019-271B17805E91%7D&dist=msr_2

Payment from DVD sales, online content at heart of dispute
By David B. Wilkerson, MarketWatch
Last update: 3:26 p.m. EDT May 7, 2008

After nearly three weeks of negotiations, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said late Tuesday that talks with SAG have broken off, citing the actors' "unreasonable demands" over fees from DVD sales and online content.
The studios say the talks were "thrust into reverse" when SAG wouldn't accept terms similar to those agreed to in earlier negotiations with movie and television writers, directors and daytime actors represented by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Those agreements "reflect the economic realities faced by everyone in our industry, including actors," the AMPTP said.

Early in the negotiations, News Corp. President Peter Chernin and Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger informed SAG leaders that the studios have no intention of making a deal with the union that breaks the pattern established with the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America, according to the daily trade magazine Variety.
News Corp. is the parent of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Dow Jones Newswires and MarketWatch.

In a statement, SAG National President Alan Rosenberg remarked that the AMPTP's move to break off talks is "unfortunate and deeply troubling." Rosenberg said the actors remain "committed to preserving rights that have been in place for decades and not giving the studios the right to use excerpts of our work in new media without our consent and negotiation."

SAG strike fears
Although the WGA walkout ended only less than three months ago, some observers are concerned that the actors and producers could be readying themselves for a standoff.

FULL story at link.