As mediated talks to end the ACTRA strike continue this week in Toronto, stage and TV actor Paulino Nunes has broken ranks with with his union to support the CFTPA’s current negotiating stance on new media residuals.

In a Feb. 12 open letter to fellow ACTRA members, released Wednesday by the CFTPA, Nunes takes issue with the performers union demands for advance payments for performances that land on new digital platforms that are not yet fully formed or profitable.

‘Until most households have Apple TVs or the HP Home Entertainment system or whatever the method may be, then there will not be a whole lot of money being made on the Internet,’ predicts the rebel ACTRA member.

Toronto-based Nunes, a working actor who has appeared in more than 100 roles over his 14 year career. including parts in October 1970 and the forthcoming CTV miniseries Would Be Kings, cites revenues generated by online sales of TV programming via iTunes as grounds to argue that the CFTPA’s current 5% buyout offer to ACTRA members for new media residuals is worth supporting.

‘When put into that (iTunes) context, the CFTPA offer of $5.65 per actor day per year of usage doesn’t look all that ridiculous. The ACTRA proposal of $65.50 per actor day per year looks far more out of touch,’ he writes.

CFTPA officials insist Nunes’ open letter came to the producers association entirely unsolicited, and represents his own personal views.

But ACTRA officials dismissed Nunes’ intervention as ill-informed and out of touch with prevailing opinion among striking performers and CFTPA members that signed continuation letters.

‘On the first day of this strike, 100% of [CFTPA] members signed letters that opposed their leadership. It’s taken five weeks to find one [ACTRA] member to support their position,’ says ACTRA chief negotiator Stephen Waddell.

Meanwhile, ACTRA and the CFTPA are holding mediated bargaining sessions this week in Toronto, looking to end the actors’ strike, now in its second month.

Both sides are also scheduled to go before a court-appointed arbitrator on Monday to consider the legality of ACTRA’s strike and its use of continuation letters.