Don't look for a resolution from this meeting, but don't look for any drastic actions to stem from it either.

The studios' bargaining agent, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, said the session, requested by SAG and set for Wednesday, "will be solely for the purposes of listening to whatever SAG has to say."

"It is important to note that SAG has declined to specify the purpose of the meeting," the producers group added, describing the planned get-together as a "sidebar meeting" consisting of a "small group of people from each side."

So they're going to talk. And that's pretty much going to be it. Whether they can work towards a compromise remains to be seen. The studio's unwillingness to budge should inspire SAG to examine stronger alternatives, but so far it has not.

...last Thursday (a SAG counteroffer) ended with the studios refusing to give any ground and insisting that SAG submit the industry's latest proposal to union members for a vote.

SAG leaders have so far been unwilling to do so, saying the studios' offer -- mirroring terms endorsed last Tuesday by the smaller American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in a separate TV-only contract -- falls short in several areas.

SAG, for example, has sought higher residual payments for actors from DVD sales and to extend its contract coverage to all made-for-Internet programming, even low-budget productions exempted under the AFTRA deal.

As SAG expected, the deal AFTRA struck with the studios last week continues to plague SAG's negotiations. The studios will continue to point to that deal and use it as a standard by which they feel SAG should follow.

The studios know that the SAG will have a hard time mustering the support for a strike - a fact which only emboldens the studios.

So far, SAG leaders have played down the likelihood of calling a strike, a move that would require a 75 percent vote by members. Many industry watchers doubt SAG could muster the support needed in light of lingering fatigue from the recent writers' work stoppage and growing economic uncertainty.

It's looking like the studios are going to be able to parlay a struggling economy, the lack of SAG willingness to strike and the AFTRA deal into a victory in this summer's negotiations with SAG.

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