BREAKING: SAG and AMPTP Reach Deal

Peace at last! After a long, hard negotiations battle (that facilitated the booting of SAG national director Doug Allen), the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have announced that they've come to a tentative agreement over a new contract for TV and features.

Says Variety:

SAG's national board is expected to approve the terms of the pact at its meeting this weekened -- triggering the mailing of ratification ballots to its 120,000 members.

The deal comes following two months of back-channels talks between SAG toppers and moguls such as Disney's Robert Iger and News Corp.'s Peter Chernin. The last key points to be settled centered on SAG insisting on an expiration date in June 2011 in order to stay in synch with the WGA, DGA and AFTRA expirations.

The back-channel talks also focused on settling claims for force majeure payments to actors from TV series that went dark during the writers strike.

A minority SAG hardliners are expected to oppose the deal, which they call lacking in new media provisions.

Passing up Coachella tickets to head to this weekend's meeting? Let us know how it goes!