Actors' Strike Finally Over

October 23 -- Striking actors can finally breathe a sigh of relief — at least until their next audition.

The Screen Actors Guild said today that its members could resume work for the advertising industry as early as next week, after settling a dispute over payment for broadcast, cable, and Internet commercials and ending a six-month walkout that is the longest in Hollywood history.

Pending approval by their board and expected ratification by SAG and American Federation of Television & Radio Artists members by mail, union representatives said their members would be ready to return to work next Monday.

"The negotiators … have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract in the fields of television and radio commercials, effectively ending the strike that began on May 1," Paul Reggio, an actor who referred to himself as "the retired captain of the strike," told a news conference this afternoon.

Officials of the unions, which represent 135,000 actors, said they had achieved many, but not all, of their goals after the six-month strike, which cost members as much as $2 million per day in session fees and residuals. The ad industry paid SAG and AFTRA members more than $720 million last year.

"Our membership has every reason to be happy about this agreement," said SAG President William Daniels, best known for his starring role on the 1980s hospital drama St. Elsewhere.

The actors fought off a bid by the ad industry, represented by the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers, to end residuals for network television ads (actors are paid for the number of times a commercial airs).

The pay-for-play formula has been used since the 1950s to compensate actors for network commercials. Now it will continue — at least on the networks.

The actors failed in their demand to expand residuals to cable ads, instead winning an up-to-140 percent increase in pay for cable ads over the life of the three-year contract.