Writers Strike: Tentative Deal reached...

Striking Hollywood writers have a tentative deal with the studios after a three-month walkout, their union has told them.

"While this agreement is neither perfect nor perhaps all that we deserve for the countless hours of hard work and sacrifice, our strike has been a success," the Writers Guild of America said in a memo emailed to members.

Meetings will be held in New York and Los Angeles later on Saturday to discuss the deal's terms, the ratification process and halting the strike, the union said.

"The feeling is relief and optimism and excitement," said Hilary Winston, a writer for the NBC sitcom "My Name Is Earl."

However, she added: "I hope this deal made this three months worth it."

"It's impossible the writers will turn it down," Michael Eisner, former CECO of Walt Disney Co., told CNBC.

The strike has crippled film and television production. The Golden Globes awards show was reduced to a news conference, and some fear the Feb. 24 Academy Awards show could also be affected.

The two sides had been at loggerheads over the issue of Internet revenue sharing.

Within the next five years, most American televisions will be connected to the Internet. The shows and movies you watch on your TV will be downloaded or streamed," the union said in its strike fact sheet.

The Directors Guild of America won some concessions from the studios in the area of online media.

However, writers had been seeking 2.5 per cent of distributor grosses from content delivered over the Internet.

That's about three times what the directors got.

Directors are to be paid a maximum $1,200 flat fee for streamed, ad-supported online shows. The writers don't like that provision.

Saturday won't see a ratification vote.

If the deal is approved, new episodes of TV shows could be up to two months away.

Writing an episode takes three weeks to write and another 40 working days to produce.

However, once the show gets rolling, episodes are worked on concurrently. An hour-long show can then be produced within eight days, said Warren Leight, an executive producer in New York for NBC's "Law & Order: Criminal Intent."

Source: CTV