LOS ANGELES, Nov 5: Hollywood writers went on strike on Monday after last-minute talks aimed at ending a standoff between studios and wordsmiths collapsed, with the union demanding a share of cash brought in from DVDs and online distribution of shows.

“The strike is on,” Writers Guild of America spokeswoman Sherry Goldman said.

The strike deadline was a minute into Monday in each US time zone, meaning writers in New York City were the first to walk off their jobs, according to Goldman.

An 11th-hour negotiating session was held with the help of a federal mediator on Sunday, but it broke down without achieving any results.

Members of the 12,000-strong union plan to begin picketing on Monday morning at major studios in the Los Angeles area and outside NBC studio at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. The first casualties of the walk-out are likely to be talk shows, soap operas, and comedy programmes that rely on fresh scripts.

Major motion picture studios and television programmes typically have stockpiles of scripts that can insulate them from feeling the effects of the strike for a year or longer.

Writers want a greater share of residual profits from television series sold on DVDs and money made from programs shown on the Internet, cellular phones, and other new media outlets.

Producers acknowledge that online viewing is increasing and promise to study the issue, but argue that it is too early to say how profitable it will be.

Writers are determined not to repeat a mistake made decades earlier, when they underestimated how lucrative home video sales would become and settled for a contract that gives them just three cents of each DVD film sale.

“The biggest sticking point is new media, new technology,” Goldman said after the strike began. “Our mantra is, ‘if they get paid, we get paid’.” Writers get 1.2 per cent of revenues from shows streamed online for one-time viewing but get nothing from content downloaded to own from websites such as iTunes.

“This technology has boomed,” Goldman said. “We need to get paid for new media,” she said, rattling off new-fangled ways movies now are viewed, including “webisodes,” “mobisodes” and “snippets.” “More of this is being shown on computer screens and we get nothing,” she said.

For example, if an entire blockbuster film supported by ads is shown free of charge on the Internet, writers get no money because studios label the display “promotional.”—AFP