NEW YORK (PAI)--Some 10,500 writers for television and movies, declaring victory in their struggle with TV and movie producers and studios, will vote Feb. 25 on the new 3-year pact their union, the Writers Guild of America, reached the weekend of Feb. 9-10, said one of WGA’s two presidents, Michael Winship.

     In the interim, the writers returned on Feb.13 from their 14-week strike that forced TV networks into reruns and into so-called “reality programming,” and crippled TV production in New York and movie production in Los Angeles.  The writers voted Feb. 12 by a 92%-8% margin to return to work.

    WGA’s two boards, for the East and West coasts, recommended approval of the new pact, after the

writers won guaranteed percentages of the gross revenues, in the contract’s third year, from airing of

the shows on new media, such as the Internet and streaming video.  Until now, they got only puny

payments when shows they wrote wound up on the new media.

    The settlement came after several developments. Winship, president of Writers Guild of America-East, said the studios realized if the strike continued much longer “the rest of the TV season was going to be on the rocks and that the pilots for next season were in danger as well.”

    It also was settled after several top executives intervened in the bargaining and after California

lawmakers, led by House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D), pressured the studios to settle, citing the impact on California’s economy and that studio stubbornness hurt both writers and other idled workers.

    Winship explained the key sticking point that forced the writers to strike--and that brought them support from unions nationwide--was the studios’ adamant stance against sharing royalty revenue from the broadcast of movies and TV shows on the Internet and through streaming video.  The new pact calls for a flat fee of $1,200 per show the first two years, and then 2% of the gross in the third year.

    “This is a great victory for us,” Winship said, noting that when the issue of royalties for movies and

TV shows on home video and DVDs came up several years ago, the studios claimed “they did not have a business plan” for those media and won their point, giving only minimal royalties.

    “This is a calculated risk we took,” Winship added, pointing out the gross revenue provision means if the studios don’t make anything out of the new media, the writers lose, too.  But he did not expect that to happen, calling the new media “the business model for the 21st century” for the studios.   Now, he said, the WGA will turn to one point it didn’t win in bargaining: Organizing writers for reality shows and animated shows.