<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Hollywood writers overwhelmingly voted to approve a hard-fought new deal with studios, their union said Monday, officially ending one of the industry's longest ever strikes.</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>"99 percent of WGA members have voted in favor of ratifying" the contract, allowing them to return to work on improved terms, said the Writers Guild of America on social media.</div><div><br></div><div>Approval by the union's 11,500-odd members had been widely seen as a near-certainty.</div><div><br></div><div>Last month, after 148 days on strike, WGA negotiators reached a deal with the likes of Netflix and Disney, achieving better pay, greater protections from artificial intelligence, minimum staffing levels and more.</div><div><br></div><div>Most writers returned to work nearly two weeks ago, in anticipation of the deal being ratified.</div><div><br></div><div>Still, film and television productions in Hollywood are yet to resume in earnest, as the far larger Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) representing 160,000 performers remains on strike.</div><div><br></div><div>Talks between the studios and SAG-AFTRA, which went on strike in July, finally began last week, and were scheduled to resume Monday.</div><div><br></div><div>SAG-AFTRA's demands over pay, and limits to the future use of AI, go further than those of the writers.</div><div><br></div><div>The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represented the industry's biggest studios in talks with the WGA, praised the outcome of the writers' vote.</div><div><br></div><div>"The AMPTP member companies congratulate the WGA on the ratification of its new contract, which represents meaningful gains and protections for writers," it said in a statement.</div><div><br></div><div>"It is important progress for our industry that writers are back to work." According to AFP reports</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div><div><br></div>