UPDATE: Here’s what the moguls have to say:
This is a day of relief and optimism for everyone in the entertainment industry. We can now all get back to work, with the assurance that we have concluded two groundbreaking labor agreements – with our directors and our writers — that establish a partnership through which our business can grow and prosper in the new digital age. The strike has been extraordinarily difficult for all of us, but the hardest hit of all have been the many thousands of businesses, workers and families that are economically dependent on our industry. We hope now to focus our collective efforts on what this industry does best – writers, directors, actors, production crews, and entertainment companies working together to deliver great content to our worldwide audiences.
Peter Chernin, Chairman and CEO, the Fox Group
Brad Grey, Chairman & CEO, Paramount Pictures Corp.
Robert A. Iger, President & CEO, The Walt Disney Company
Michael Lynton, Chairman & CEO, Sony Pictures Entertainment
Barry M. Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros.
Leslie Moonves, President & CEO, CBS Corp.
Harry Sloan, Chairman & CEO, MGM
Jeff Zucker, President & CEO, NBC Universal
Here’s the official WGA announcement to striking writers:
On Tuesday, members of the Writers Guilds East and West voted by a 92.5% margin to lift the restraining order that was invoked on November 5th. The strike is over.
Writing can resume immediately. If you were employed when the strike began, you should plan to report to work on Wednesday. If you’re not employed at an office or other work site, call or e-mail your employer that you are resuming work. If you have been told not to report to work or resume your services, we recommend that you still notify your employer in writing of your availability to do so. Questions concerning return-to-work issues should be directed to the WGAW legal department or the WGAE’s assistant executive director.
The decision to begin this strike was not taken lightly and was only made after no other reasonable alternative was possible. We are profoundly aware of the economic loss these fourteen weeks have created not only for our members but so many other colleagues who work in the television and motion picture industries. Nonetheless, with the establishment of the WGA jurisdiction over new media and residual formulas based on distributor’s gross revenue (among other gains) we are confident that the results are a significant achievement not only for ourselves but the entire creative community, now and in the future.
We hope to build upon the extraordinary energy, ingenuity, and solidarity that were generated by your hard work during the strike.
Over the next weeks and months, we will be in touch with you to discuss and develop ways we can use our unprecedented unity to make our two guilds stronger and more effective than ever.
Now that the strike has ended, there remains the vote to ratify the new contract. Ballots and information on the new deal, both pro and con, will be mailed to you shortly. You will be able to return those ballots via mail or at a membership meeting to be held Monday, February 25th, 2008, at times and locations to be determined.
Thank you for making it possible. As ever, we are all in this together.
Best,
Patric M. Verrone
President, WGAWMichael Winship
President, WGAE

Previous: At approximately 7 PM, Writers Guild of America West President Patric Verrone will announce the results of a vote that would end the writers strike, a guild official says. (Photos by Jim Stevenson.) Above, Verrone arrives to supervise member voting on whether to end the strike. Below, screenwriters Howard Himelstein (A Good Woman) and Allison Burnett (Untraceable) finish voting. “We picketed every single day at Fox.” Far below, the line to vote in LA extended down the block.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.



Yeah…
Congrats to all!
I know there are probably a lot of writers out there who are relieved to end the strike and get back to business. I know what it’s like having been through this and worse numerous times. Even now it will take time to recover and heal. But you have to sit back and ask yourself, was it worth it?
Was it worth three months of hell to make the minimal progress made? Taking all things into consideration, had there been no strike things might be worse. There would not have even been the paltry gains that were made and possibly even rollbacks on what writers had before all this.
But that;s the nature of this industry, at least in Hollywood-land where AMPTP companies still call the shots and writers pretty much have to let them.
So while many will disagree with me in this, I’m quite sure many others won’t and I’d like to think I speak for them, if for no other reason than the reasons they have not to speak their minds. In this kind of thing you have two opposing sides and it polarizes people to feel right or wrong, good or bad, “yes” or “no”. The real world has grey areas and things don’t naturally lie somewhere in the middle ground, obviously.
Anyway, I’d just like to offer this response to the moguls from the bottom of my heart. Fuck you.
The WGA people are a bunch of self centered wieners. They caused so much damage to the economy of LA during their strike but do they care? NO! All they care about is themselves and now they can go back to writing the same crap that we haven’t missed for the past few months.
Great….
I’m still waiting to hear about the details of the gains in DVD residuals. Or did that not happen??? Bueller?
Hooray!!!
welcome back–now we can have more crap on TV
CONGRATS!!!
about time!! yay.
Wow! Now when can we expect TV to catch up?
What about the viewers? We’ve been yearning and wishing for our favorite shows to have new episodes- what shows will be cancelled because of this? Everybody complains that the strike is for this and for that, people without jobs, etc- your choice- but nobody bothered to mention the millions of viewers who support those jobs through spending on the advertizers products… Welcome back!
Can someone tell me how the settlement affects HD DVDs. Are they covered under new media somehow? Is it still nothing as with regular DVDs?
Why all the concern with downloads when the industry is about to start another sales cycle with HD DVDs?
Thank God! Now I can finally go back to being an out of work TV writer!
From the WGA website:
That’s 92.5% of 3,775 voters decided the fate for some 10,000 WGA members. So actually only 35% of WGA membership voted to end the strike. A fine example of the media agenda to distort the facts. Either that or the strike began on stardate Nov. 5 3,775. Who writes this stuff?
Just a simple CONGRATS!!!! to the WGA< with hopes this holds for the strength for unions everywhere!
Does this mean we can bring the aliens back on Days Of Our Lives?
at least THE OFFICE will be back on!!! that is the best sitcom EVER!!!
What? No word from Nick Counter? Earlier in the strike, you couldn’t keep his name off a press release or letter. I mean, isn’t he happy?
Funny, really. The AMPTP and their PR monkeys spent all that time demonizing Young and Verrone, clearly trying to get WGA members to lose faith in their leadership.
But seems like the reverse happened: the big congloms lost faith in THEIR leadership at the table.
So much so that their chief negotiator (Counter) is nowhere to be seen or heard when a deal is made. He’s not even mentioned on the AMPTP’s own site.
I’d love to know the real story behind The Sidelining of Nick Counter.
And since when did the AMPTP just become seven people (the signatories of the “It’s over” statement)? Interesting shift, bet those hundreds of smaller company members must be thrilled at that.
Congratulations to the AMPTP, you managed once again to screw the writers and they are even patting themselves on the back not realizing it. You have accomplished your goal and in only 3 months.
You have assured several years of labour peace with the writers as there is no way they will hit the picket lines again for at least a decade.
You didn’t have to give up any money on the DVD,HD DVD, BluRay… market and can keep all the profits you can eat as consumers replace thier movie and tv show collections with the latest incarnation.
You were able to get rid of showrunners on payroll who are not working on current series, you have been able to find new sources for television shows overseas.
You have had a chance to review the way you do business and have arrived at some ways to do more with fewer writers by changing how pilots are handled.
Yes, of all the interested parties, you, the AMPTP, have outshone them all and truly deserve congratulations for more than exceeding your wildest dreams for this deal.
LOL at the above comment and especially the bit about stardate Nov5 3,775. LOL. Glad to know that the writing is going to get back to Happening. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!
Congrats idiots.
By drawing this bogus line in the sand, you screwed not just yourselves, but SAG, DGA and IATSE. As if there wasn’t a big enough gap between writers and production.
This was an idiotic strike and ultimately harmful to all.
The whole guild, it’s members, and particularlly our flawed leadership should feel deep shame and remorse, but with mouths full of sand we’ll just move on, bruised, weakened and gloating about this tragic, phyrric victory.
“That’s 92.5% of 3,775 voters decided the fate for some 10,000 WGA members. So actually only 35% of WGA membership voted to end the strike.”
Your point being? To cite an example, only 24.57% of voting age Americans voted for George Bush in 2000, yet that didn’t stop him deciding upon the fate of the world.
As a viewer who was rooting for the writers more than the return of shows, I am disheartened by the math – I have been reading that there are about 12000 dues paying writers in the WGA, but all the reports I have been reading say that only 3800 (rounding up) of them voted and that 93% (rounding up) of them voted to approve. Which means that about 1/3 of the membership decided the fate of all. About the national average, I guess.
How can I get back the 14 weeks of wages I was screwed out of? Not to mention the series I was on is now cancelled due to the strike. Yes, cheers all around.
GOD is it satisfying to hear the “hard core” union members bitch and complain about the deal, just days after ranting and raving you unionized labor, how they had the upperhand, how the stike would go on through June. I can only hope a lot of you-bags end up losing your job permanently, and that those who oposed the strike and loss of income while supporting a family somehow come out ahead in all of this.
I said it 2 months ago and I’ll say is now (its not earth-shattering by any means) – the “moguls” f-ing do this for a living. you were never going to win. you lost, badly, and a lot of good people suffered. Writing Is A Commodity. Don’t forget your place.