NBC is moving fast to bring its late-night talk shows back now that the WGA strike has been resolved. On Wednesday, Deadline reported that The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers will return to the air on Monday, Oct. 2. Both shows have been off the air since May when the Writers Guild of America went on strike.
The WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) finally struck a deal this weekend, and as predicted, the late-night talk show writers will be the first ones back to work. Fallon and Meyers will be back on the air with new episodes on Monday – the same night as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS and Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC. All four network hosts have been putting up a united front throughout this strike, along with John Oliver from HBO’s Last Week Tonight. They announced their return to work in a collective statement on Wednesday through their podcast, Strike Force Five.
Videos by PopCulture.com
“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,” they said. “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 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,” they went on. “We were mostly the heroes, but you were in there, too. 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 the strike ended.”
This was the longest labor strike in Hollywood history by a wide margin, with 146 total days of work stoppage and picketing. The strike is expected to end officially at midnight on Wednesday, but the WGA is already moving forward with a vote to ratify the new contract. Union leaders have released a simplified summary of the deal’s terms, but not the exact language of the contract. It increases minimum compensation for members, as well as pension and health fund rates. It also adds specific new protections of employment term lengths, minimum staff sizes and foreign streaming residual payments.
While writers can now get back to work, the impact of this strike on the finished product will last for the entire upcoming TV season. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver will return on Sunday, Oct. 1, while the network late-night shows will return on Monday, Oct. 2.
