Leaders of striking US film and TV writers have told their members they have reached a "tentative deal" which could end their three-month strike.

"While this agreement is neither perfect or all that we deserve, our strike has been a success," guild members were told in an e-mail. < p>

The strike centres on payment for work distributed on the internet.

If the unions governing boards back the deal at meetings on Sunday, writers could be back at work on Monday.

The row over "residuals" has crippled film and TV production, left other industry workers out of jobs and led to the cancellation of last month's Golden Globe awards.

The deal would also guarantee the Academy Awards ceremony will take place as planned on 24 February.

'We get paid'

Writers Guild of America (WGA) members discussed the settlement plan at meetings in New York and Los Angeles on Saturday.

"We had a very lively discussion. I'm happy with what happened," said Michael Winship, president of the WGA, East, after the meeting in New York.

"At the moment, I feel strongly it (the proposed deal) has a strong chance of going through."

However, he cautioned that the contract was not a "done deal" until it was ratified by members.

But many of the estimated 500 writers leaving the New York meeting gave a positive prognosis.

"There's a general feeling of tremendous success. I was delighted," said John Simmons, a TV writer. "We agreed that this looks pretty good... It bodes well for the future."

Earlier, Mr Winship and his West Coast counterpart, Patric Verrone, told their members the proposed deal was "an agreement that protects a future in which the internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery".

"It creates formulas for revenue-based residuals in new media, provides access to deals and financial data to help us evaluate and enforce those formulas, and establishes the principle that, 'When they get paid, we get paid'."

The two men said the time had come to end the strike, citing the "enormous personal toll on our members and countless others".

The full agreement has been published on trade journal Variety's website.

Informal talks

Some 10,500 writers stopped work on 5 November, a few days after their old contract with studios ended. The deal comes a week after a breakthrough in informal talks between the guild and studio bosses.

The strike has said to have cost Los Angeles' film and TV industry at least $650m (£330m) in lost wages, with the wider economy losing over $1bn (£508m). If agreement is reached, studio executives said it would take about two months for new TV programmes to emerge.

Studios will have to decide which of the 65 affected series will come back, with hits House, CSI, Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives likely to get priority.

Movies have been less severely affected because they have longer production times.

Two high profile productions, the Da Vinci Code prequel Angels and Demons and Johnny Depp's Shantaram, could be up and running quickly.