Back to the table.

Back to the Table: Negotiators for writers and studios returned to the bargaining table last week but remained far from reaching a new deal that would end the Writers Guild strike. The talks underscore the issues surrounding the big divide, which remains writers' payment for work on the Internet. The Writers Guild of America rejected the studios' proposal for a tiered compensation system based on how often a show is viewed online. The writers wanted a single fixed payment of less than $250 a year for reuse of an hourlong program. Instead, the guild proposed a sliding scale in the first year that would fetch $632 for the first 100,000 views, with pay rates increasing at each 100,000 views thereafter. After the first year, writers would get a residual based on 2.5 percent of the revenue collected by the show distributor.