Writers and Film, TV Officials Meet

In an unusual session, top executives from eight big movie and television companies met Friday with Writers Guild of America negotiators to urge a resolution of the 13-week-old writers strike.

At a joint press conference after the session, representatives of both sides said they had agreed to continue negotiating toward a contract but declined to discuss specifics of the meeting.

“I think it’s fair to say there was a frank and useful exchange of views. . . . We hope we’ll have reason to see (the meeting) as a turning point,” said Brian Walton, chief negotiator for the 9,000-member guild.

Several Participants

Walton was flanked by J. Nicholas Counter III, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, an industry bargaining group.

The studio executives included Fox Inc. Chairman Barry Diller; MCA Inc. President Sidney Sheinberg; Lorimar-Telepictures Chairman Merv Adelson; Walt Disney Studios Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg; MGM/UA Communications Co. Chairman Lee Rich; Paramount Pictures Chairman Frank Mancuso; New World Entertainment Co-chairman Harry Sloan and MTM Enterprises Senior Executive Vice President Mel Blumenthal.

Top studio officials had not met directly with the writers since the strike against more than 200 production companies began March 7.

Sources familiar with the meeting, which lasted more than an hour, said neither side offered any dramatic change in its bargaining stance at the session, which was called by the companies to make a show of their concern about the strike.

“It was something like the commercial: ‘When you care enough, send the very best,’ ” explained one company executive who attended the meeting but declined to be identified.

“This whole town has suffered from a horrendous shortage of leadership. There’s been something terribly, terribly wrong with the process (of collective bargaining in Hollywood). The process worked best when there was strong leadership on both sides,” he said.

Basic Disagreements

Negotiators for the guild and the alliance have met regularly in the presence of a federal mediator since May 26. But they apparently have not resolved basic disagreements about residual payments for one-hour TV shows, foreign residuals and writers’ demands for expanded creative control over productions.

Separately, the Writers Guild on Friday sent a letter urging 198 TV stations affiliated with the ABC television network to press the network’s executives to soften their position in the contract talks.

A guild spokeswoman said the union was preparing similar letters to be sent to CBS and NBC affiliates.