Producers of the 2008 Grammy Awards are asking for an interim agreement with the Writer’s Guild of America that will allow the 50th edition of the awards ceremony to go off as planned.

Neil Portnow, president of the Recording Academy, has confirmed that the producers of the 50th annual Grammy awards have requested an interim agreement with the WGA to allow the show to go ahead.

He explained that during a meeting with WGA president, he had outlined the Recording Academy’s backing for the writers’ union’s right to strike, saying that “the music industry had for more than a decade been fighting to obtain fair and just compensation for the original digital content of its members”.

Portnow pledged to “take whatever action is necessary to ensure that a programme so vital to our industry, artists, charitable beneficiaries, and the great city of Los Angeles is held as planned.”