Late-night shows return as actors resume labor talks
LOS ANGELES — Late-night talk shows are returning Monday after a five-month absence brought on by the Hollywood writers strike, while actors completed the first day of talks that could end their own long work walk-off.
CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! and NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon were the first shows to leave the air when the writers strike began May 2, and now will be among the first to return.
Comedian John Oliver got his first take on the strike out, exuberantly returning Sunday night to his Last Week Tonight show on HBO and delivering full-throated support for the strike.
Oliver cheerily delivered a recap of stories from the last five months before turnings serious, calling the strike “an immensely difficult time” for all those in the industry.
“To be clear, this strike happened for good reasons. Our industry has seen its workers severely squeezed in recent years,” Oliver said. “So, the writers guild went to strike and thankfully won. But, it took a lot of sacrifices from a lot of people to achieve that.”
“I am also furious that it took the studios 148 days to achieve a deal they could have offered on day [expletive] one,” Oliver said. He added that he hope the writers contract would give leverage to other entertainment industry guilds — as well as striking auto workers and employees in other industries — to negotiate better deals.
Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns HBO, is among the studios on the other side of the table in the writers and actors strikes, and its CEO, David Zaslav, has been directly involved in negotiations.
Network late-night hosts had their returns later Monday.
“I’ll see you Monday, and every day after that!” an ebullient Colbert said in an Instagram video last week from the Ed Sullivan Theater, which was full of his writers and other staffers for their first meeting since spring.
The hosts haven’t been entirely idle. They teamed up for a podcast, Strike Force Five, during the strike.
The writers were allowed to return to work last week after the Writers Guild of America reached an agreement on a three-year contract with an alliance of the industry’s biggest studios, streaming services and production companies.
Union leaders touted the deal as a clear win on issues including pay, size of staffs and the use of artificial intelligence that made the months off worth it. The writers themselves will vote on the contract in a week of balloting that began Monday.
Meanwhile, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists began negotiations Monday with the same group, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, for the first time since they joined writers in a historic dual strike on July 14. The two sides will resume talks Wednesday.
Actors walked off the job over many of the same issues as writers, and SAG-AFTRA leaders said they would look closely at the gains and compromises of the WGA’s deal, but emphasized their demands would remain the same as they were when the strike began.
In a message emailed to members and posted on social media, the union’s leadership said not to treat a resolution as a foregone conclusion.
“As we negotiate, we ask that you not let up,” the message said. “Keep turning out in full force on our picket lines and at solidarity events around the country. Let the AMPTP hear your voice loud and clear. It makes a difference.”