Association of Talent Agents
trade association of talent agents
The Association of Talent Agents (ATA) is an American non-profit trade association representing talent agencies in the United States entertainment industry. ATA agencies represent the vast majority of artists working in the field, including actors, directors, writers, and other artists in film, stage, television, radio, commercial, literary work, and other entertainment enterprises.
History
Established in 1937, ATA is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit trade association of over 100 talent agencies located primarily in the New York and Los Angeles areas. Today, over 100 agencies that serve the various branches of the entertainment industry are members of the Association of Talent Agents.
Originally known as the Artists' Managers Guild, the ATA was founded in the aftermath of National Labor Relations Board v Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, a US labor law case in which the Supreme Court upheld the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. This landmark piece of New Deal legislation, also known as the Wagner Act, guaranteed the right of private sector employees to unionize and bargain collectively, thus leading to the establishment of many of the unions and guilds that represent professionals working in the entertainment industry such as the Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild of America, and Writers Guild of America.
In 2020 ATA closed its physical offices and currently operates out of a PO Box in Santa Monica (3019 Ocean Park Blvd, #344 Santa Monica, CA 90405) due to financial constraints.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Association of Talent Agents” is trade association of talent agents. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Association, Talent and Agents, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4810084. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 1935 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “Association of Talent Agents” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.