Late night talk shows will ALL be back by Monday after strike ended

Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and Stephen Colbert RETURN to late night TV: Hosts will be back by Monday after Hollywood writers finally end strike

• The talk show titans’ joint decision came hours after the WGA strike ended Wednesday at 12:01am PST after 148 days
• As for HBO, Real Time with Bill Maher will be the first to return this Friday and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver will be back this Sunday 
• But with the SAG-AFTRA strike raging on since July 14, they will have trouble finding celebrity guests since actors are unable to promote films and TV shows

Hours after the WGA strike ended on Wednesday at 12:01am PST, all four of the major late-night talk shows hosted by Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and Stephen Colbert announced they’d be back on the air by Monday. 

As for HBO, Real Time with Bill Maher will be the first to return this Friday night and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver will be back this Sunday night. 

Fallon, Kimmel, Meyers, Colbert, and Oliver had teamed up during the 148 days of the strike to launch a limited Spotify podcast series called Strike Force 5, and they released a combined statement on social media Wednesday.

‘Flash! Their mission complete, the founding members of Strike Force 5 will return to their network television shows this Monday 10/2 and one of them to premium cable on 10/1,’ the statement read.

‘Of course, in a greater sense, the Strike Force 5 will never end, because Strike Force 5 is not a place, Strike Force 5 is not a people, Strike Force 5 is barely a podcast…nay. Strike Force 5 is an idea. An idea that five men could talk on top of each other for 12 episodes, and maybe somebody would listen. As we say goodbye, we would like to thank all those somebodies. Truly, you were the heroes. We were mostly the heroes, but you were in there, too.

Late night TV returns! Hours after the WGA strike ended on Wednesday at 12:01am PST, all four of the major late-night talk shows hosted by Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and Stephen Colbert announced they’d be back on the air by Monday

‘See you Friday night!’ As for HBO, Real Time with Bill Maher will be the first to return this Friday night and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver will be back this Sunday night

‘We want to thank the entire Strike Force 5 team, our wives, our special guests, and apologize to Conan O’Brien, who agreed to do the pod, but Stephen forgot to send him any possible dates, and then the strike ended. Goodbye for now. And hello for later, because we still have a few more episodes. Unless Ryan Reynolds cuts off the cash. This is the Strike Force 5 signing off and the Late Night 5 sighing back on… what was the password to my work computer again? Babysomoza?’ 

All proceeds received by the hosts from Strike Force 5 went to out-of-work staff from the hosts’ respective shows – CBS’ The Late Show, NBC’s The Tonight Show, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, NBC’s Late Night, and HBO’s Last Week Tonight. 

But with the SAG-AFTRA strike raging on since July 14, the talk show titans will have a bit more trouble finding celebrity guests, since actors are unable to promote films and TV shows without breaking rules. 

Along the way, some hosts caught considerable scab backlash for wanting to return before WGA and AMPTP finished negotiations including Bill Maher, Drew Barrymore, and Jennifer Hudson. 

All three unions were simultaneously on strike demanding contracts that included updated streaming residuals and AI regulations. 

Scripted shows will take longer to return, with actors still on strike and no negotiations yet on the horizon.

The three-year agreement with studios, producers, and streaming services includes significant wins in the main areas writers had fought for – compensation, length of employment, size of staffs and control of artificial intelligence – matching or nearly equaling what they had sought at the outset of the strike.

The union had sought minimum increases in pay and future residual earnings from shows and will get a raise of between 3.5% and 5% in those areas – more than the studios had offered.

‘Boom!’ Fallon, Kimmel, Meyers, Colbert, and Oliver had teamed up during the 148 days of the strike to launch a limited Spotify podcast series called Strike Force 5, and they released a combined statement on social media Wednesday 

Interviewing Jon Stewart! All proceeds received by the hosts from Strike Force 5 went to out-of-work staff from the hosts’ respective shows – CBS’ The Late Show, NBC’s The Tonight Show, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, NBC’s Late Night, and HBO’s Last Week Tonight (pictured Sunday)

Still on the picket line! But with the SAG-AFTRA strike raging on since July 14, the talk show titans will have a bit more trouble finding celebrity guests since actors are unable to promote films and TV shows without breaking rules (Bob Odenkirk and Jack Black pictured on Tuesday)

‘I own this choice’: Along the way, some hosts caught considerable scab backlash for wanting to return before WGA and AMPTP finished negotiations including Bill Maher, Drew Barrymore (pictured September 11), and Jennifer Hudson

The guild also negotiated new residual payments based on the popularity of streaming shows, where writers will get bonuses for being a part of the most popular shows on Netflix, Max and other services, a proposal studios initially rejected. Many writers on picket lines had complained that they weren’t properly paid for helping create heavily watched properties.

On artificial intelligence, the writers got the regulation and control of the emerging technology they had sought. Under the contract, raw, AI-generated storylines will not be regarded as ‘literary material’ – a term in their contracts for scripts and other story forms a screenwriter produces. 

This means they won’t be competing with computers for screen credits. Nor will AI-generated stories be considered ‘source’ material, their contractual language for the novels, video games or other works that writers may adapt into scripts.

Writers have the right under the deal to use AI in their process if the company they are working for agrees and other conditions are met. But companies cannot require a writer to use AI.

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