Producers speak out over strike

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Producers hit by the Hollywood writers' strike have taken out full-page adverts pleading their case as the industrial action enters its second week.

The ads, published in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter on Monday, bore the heading "Setting the Record Straight".

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is seeking higher fees - or "residuals" - from work released on DVD or online.

But the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) said that writers were already well compensated.

"As the WGA knows and its own records will attest, writers are paid residuals on permanent digital downloads," the adverts read.

Writers also benefited from pay-per-view digital downloads, the AMPTP continued - part of a "record-breaking" amount paid last year to the WGA's West Coast members.

Picket lines

It also stated that a deal over streaming films and TV programmes online had been "on the table" when the Writers Guild went on strike last week.

The adverts in Monday's trade papers mark the latest salvo in an increasingly acrimonious dispute that has halted production on some of US television's top-rated shows.

Late-night talk shows have been forced to air re-runs, while real-time drama 24 has been indefinitely postponed to avoid broadcasting a partial series.

Stars have joined writers on picket lines, while others - among them cast members of the US version of The Office - have refused to cross them.

News writers employed by the CBS network may vote to join the strike later this week, the Associated Press reports.