The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) may be nearing an agreement, as several press reports claim that significant progress has been made over the last days. A formal deal is possible by the end of this week.

The 19-member West Coast board of the Writers Guild of America was reportedly presented a pending agreement reached between guild negotiators and Hollywood studios. They might vote on it as soon as this weekend, the Los Angeles Times claims. The new contract is modeled on that signed a short while ago with the Directors Guild.

"While we have made important progress since the companies re-engaged us in serious talks, negotiations continue," said WGA Negotiating Committee Chairman John F. Bowman in an email obtained by EW.com. "Regardless of what you may hear or read, there are many significant points that have yet to be worked out."

The last round of negotiations allegedly started on Friday after Peter Chernin, the president of News Corp., returned from London and joined the talks. His company owns the 20th Century Fox movie studio and the Fox broadcast network. Chernin and Robert A. Iger, the chief executive of the Walt Disney Co. are the most powerful people participating in negotiations.

People close to the negotiating table between the studios and the striking writers said on Saturday that a breakthrough was reached in their discussions, after weeks of stalling in talks. No detail was given regarding the possible agreement, because during negotiations both sides agreed to a news blackout. One of the disagreements points was about how much and when the writers should be paid for online projects after they were broadcasted on TV.

The producers of this month’s Grammy Awards ceremony have secured the benevolence and participation of the striking Writers Guild, who agreed a week ago to allow its members to work on the show. An interim agreement was reached between striking film and television writers and the producers of the Feb. 10 Grammy Awards show that will allow the program to be written by members of the Writers Guild.

The union said it would not picket the Grammy ceremony, putting an end to fears that the list of absentee stars not wishing to cross picket lines would ruin the event at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. The Golden Globes stand as a precedent – the usually glamorous awards ceremony was sadly transformed into a celebrity-free news conference and the Grammys as well as the Academy Awards feared a similar fate.

This year’s 80th edition is due to take place on February 24. The Oscars were postponed only three times in the Academy history: first was in 1938 due to floods, than in 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and in 1981 before the assassination attempt on President Reagan.

The WGA are pushing for more residuals from new media distribution (such films or TV shows sold online), while producers reject the guild's demands as unworkable and too expensive. Also, the WGA-requested compensation package for DVD sales would cost about $220 million over three years, a small fraction of the around $24 billion in revenues generated by U.S. DVD sales and rentals over the last year.