Acting Out.

COMMERCIAL actors face a sobering question in the wake of their recent settlement with the advertising industry: Was it worth it? Looking over the agreement that was finally hashed out after six months of intransigence, it's hard to imagine how leaders of the Screen Actors Guild could claim that the gains they made merited such a costly walkout. Then again, maybe they'll just pretend. They are actors.

The specifics behind the commercial actors' dispute differ significantly from those of movie and TV actors, who along with Hollywood writers, keep threatening to strike when their respective contracts expire next summer. But both SAG and the Writers Guild of America would be wise to examine the marginal victory by the commercial actors before turning belligerent in this next round of negotiations.

Consider what they didn't get: a long sought-after "pay-for-play" clause that would compensate actors each time one of their ads runs on cable television. Instead, SAG settled for an increase in the flat fees that an actor receives if their commercial appears during a specific quarter. Also consider what the actors did get: a pledge by advertisers to use SAG members in Internet advertising. That's nice, but Internet advertising these days consists mostly of banner ads that don't require theatrics, union or otherwise. Given the current dot-com travails, who knows whether traditional advertising will ever take off on the Internet.

It's worth noting that the commercial actors were led by a militant slate of guild officials elected only last year (and with a mandate to take a more aggressive negotiating stance). But their efforts, along with the support of big names like Harrison Ford and Helen Hunt, did little to upend the advertising industry's resolve. After six months, the actors were ready to cut whatever deal they could.

Now comes the next act. For much of the summer, movie and TV studios were rushing projects into production under the assumption that both SAG and the WGA would strike in 2001.

To be sure, there are plenty of reasonable grievances that both guilds bring to the table, staffing with cable residual rates that have been kept at artificially low levels going back to the early '80s. But SAG and the WGA must be realistic about the gains they can make - and more importantly, about the downside risk of walking off the job for an extended period. Unlike the five-month writers' strike in 1988, Hollywood's last major labor dispute, the studios and networks are now part of much larger entertainment conglomerates that could withstand a walkout for weeks, even months. Their leverage is further extended by the growing popularity of reality programs like "Survivor" and "Big Brother" that run nonunion shops. There are several signs that SAG, perhaps having learned its lesson from the commercial actors struggle, might want to cut an early deal. Also coming forward are a few key studio executives. The WGA leadership, however, appears unwilling to institute fast-track negotiations -- a less contentious tack that it took through the '90s.

Maybe it's just a negotiating ploy. Let's hope so. The commercial actors strike alone resulted in financial losses of more than $200 million. That's chump change next to the potential damage from a full-blown Hollywood strike -- the kind of damage that neither the guilds nor the local economy are in any position to withstand.