Strike update – “And by soon I mean months and months and months”

This is very, very bad. From the Deadline Hollywood Daily (emphasis added):

Deals, Lies & Backchannelling: Why This Is A Bigger Mess Now Than Ever Before

For days, only sources within the moguls camp, but not the writers guild, have discussed what really went on at the Sofitel Hotel Sunday. And the Hollywood studios and networks were especially savvy in getting their spin out first and foremost about how the writers were to blame for the bargaining talks breakdown. And they’re still spinning. (Just read the producers-slanted coverage by ‘Variety’ and ‘The Hollywood Reporter’ and even the major newspapers which all depend on studio and network advertising while I stay smack in the middle.) But now the WGA leadership is breaking their silence.

Top guild sources tell me they were “deliberately duped” by the moguls in a backchannel deal to bring the guild back to the bargaining table Sunday. The lure was a promise by two Big Media CEOs — Peter Chernin and Les Moonves — that, if the writers gave up their DVD residual demands, then the producers would respond by improving the formula on the central sticking issue of Internet downloads for movies and television. My producer sources confirmed to me such a deal was indeed made. In other words, it could have been possible that a settlement might be only days or a week away, with enough progress to induce the writers side to suspend the start of the strike.

The writers say they kept up their end by dropping their DVD demands – a huge concession which later puzzled the WGA membership because it seemed to come out of nowhere and had to be explained by WGA president Patric Verrone without revealing the whole backstory. Why didn’t he? Because the WGA was abiding by the “mutual pledge of confidentiality” that applied to Sunday’s session. Today, sources there decided to spill to me because the producers’ heavy spin has gone unanswered. The WGA accuses the producers of not delivering in kind on the all-important electronic sell-through issue all day Sunday. So, according to guild sources, that’s the real reason the 12:01 AM strike wasn’t averted and DVDs were dropped and then put back on the table.

As a spitting mad WGA leader put it to me today: “All I can say is, if someone calls me and says, “You do X, and I do Y” and that someone doesn’t do it, then I’ve been lied to and I’ve been played. It’s a complete betrayal. I just don’t know what the studios’ game is.”

So why is this news important? Because now both sides in this writers vs producers fight are further apart than they have ever been, and that’s saying a lot. Both sides believe they have fresh and ample reasons not to go back into negotiations anytime soon. And by soon I mean months and months and months. Both sides believe that, after Sunday’s betrayals, they can’t trust the other side enough to even talk about scheduling new AMPTP/WGA negotiations much less trust any backchannelling again. Ironically, as I was being told the WGA’s side today, moguls like Moonves were briefing their CEO counterparts and being briefed on what went down Sunday inside the negotiating room. But are they being told the whole story? About the backchannel deal? Not that I can tell. About the promise that’d been made? Not that I can tell. About not keeping to the letter or spirit of it? Not that I can tell. Instead, I received a warning from inside that camp today not to report the WGA accusations, or name the two moguls, or repeat what went on inside the talks Sunday. But, to stay smack in the middle, I can’t do that — just as I can’t favor the other side when reporting about this strike and its issues.

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