AMPTP Releases Details of Latest Counteroffer

On Tuesday evening, WGA leaders met with key CEOs in Sherman Oaks, in the hope of bringing the nearly four-month strike to an end. Disney chief Bob Iger, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos all attended to express their commitment to end the strike.

Shortly after the meeting, a press release was by the AMPTP, revealing its Aug. 11 proposal that “addresses WGA’s most significant priorities” and shows significant improvement from their last offer. The latest proposal emphasizes a significant raise in compensation and residuals.

“Our priority is to end the strike so that valued members of the creative community can return to what they do best and to end the hardships that so many people and businesses that service the industry are experiencing,” said Carol Lombardini, president of AMPTP, in the statement.

While some aspects of the statement meet with the WGA’s terms, the proposal also seems to be crafted with loopholes with the intention to pressure the Guild to submit to its terms. 

In a message to members, the WGA leaders disputed the notion that the offer was made in good faith. “We were met with a lecture about how good their single and only counteroffer was.”

“We explained all the ways in which their counter’s limitations and loopholes and omissions failed to sufficiently protect writers from the existential threats that caused us to strike in the first place. We told them that a strike has a price, and that price is an answer to all – and not just some – of the problems they have created in the business. But this wasn’t a meeting to make a deal. This was a meeting to get us to cave, which is why, not 20 minutes after we left the meeting, the AMPTP released its summary of their proposals.”

The studios propose a two-writer minimum staffing and a 20-week guarantee for writers’ room. The WGA has instead proposed a mandatory minimum room size of five writers with more hired for longer seasons. In response to the WGA’s demand that half the writing staff be allowed to work through production for producing experience, the studio proposes a minimum of two writers fired for production, leaving the final staffing call to the showrunner.

To increase viewership transparency, AMPTP agrees to provide the WGA with the total number of hours viewed for on-demand and subscription titles and share data from streaming platforms in confidential quarterly reports.

WGA has previously pushed for a viewership-based residual plan, where writers would be paid more if a show is popular. While the studios propose to increase worldwide residuals, they are not changing the time-based structure they use to calculate residuals.

Addressing Artificial Intelligence, the AMPTP agreed to WGA’s proposal that materials generated by AI will not be considered “literary material” or source material” and will not affect writers’ compensation and credit.

The statement further clarifies: “For example, if the Company gives a writer a GAI-produced screenplay and asks the writer to rewrite it, the writer will receive the fee for a screenplay with no assigned material and not a rewrite. Or, if the Company gives a writer a GAI-produced story as the basis for a teleplay, the writer will receive the story and teleplay rate.”

In the statement, the AMPTP offers to increase wages to minimums of 5%, 4%, and 3.5% over the three-year contract. Writers working on pre-greenlight, short-term work will receive 31% increase. 44% for writer-producers. Writers in regular rooms will receive a 5% increase with writer-producer receiving 15%.