Meyers: 'Striking Is Harder Than SNL'....

Comedian Seth Meyers is hoping for a speedy resolution to the ongoing writers' strike - because picketing is harder than writing for Saturday Night Live.The 33-year-old, who is head writer for the comedy show, has been joining his Writers Guild of America union members on the picket lines in Manhattan, New York, every day since the walk-out over royalties disrupted production on the long-running programme last month (05Nov07).He tells the New York Post's gossip column PageSix, "The hours are earlier.I'm out here every day."Meyers described American TV network Abc's firing of a large chunk of the production team on the sketch show as "really unfortunate".Meanwhile the Hollywood writers are "optimistic" about bringing an end to their strike after promising developments in contract negotiations with studio bosses.The upbeat note comes after two days of discussions between writers and producers to settle a dispute over royalty payments, and is the strongest sign yet that progress is being made toward reaching a deal to end the picket lines.The Writers Guild of America (Wga) said it held "substantive" talks with the studios, but was still waiting for a response to all of its proposals. Talks are due to resume on Thursday (06Dec07).

Wga union members have been on strike since 5 November (07). Their demands have focused on a greater share of revenue for content distributed via the internet.

Studios had proposed a flat $250 (#125) payment for a year's use of an hour-long TV show on the web. In contrast, writers currently earn $20,000 (#10,000) for a single repeat of an episode on one broadcasting network.

Last week, the Wga rejected an offer of an extra $130 million in royalties over three years, describing it as a "massive rollback".

The strike has become the worst crisis to hit the U.S. film and TV industry in 20 years, halting production on popular shows like Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives, as well as a number of big-screen projects.

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