Late-night TV shows announce their return after Hollywood writers strike ends
TV’s late-night hosts planned to return to their regular evening sketches and monologues as the flow of topical humor is set to return after five silent months due to the just-ended Hollywood writers strike
NEW YORK — TV's late-night hosts planned to return to their evening sketches and monologues by next week, reinstating the flow of topical humor silenced for five months by the newly ended Hollywood’s writers strike.
Bill Maher led the charge back to work by announcing early Wednesday that his HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher” would be back on the air Friday. By mid-morning, the hosts of NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” and “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on CBS had announced they'd also return, all by Monday. “Last Week Tonight” with John Oliver was slated to return to the air Sunday.
Fallon, Meyers, Kimmel, Colbert and Oliver had spent the latter part of the strike teaming up for a popular podcast called “Strike Force Five” — named after their personal text chain and with all proceeds benefiting their out-of-work writers. On Instagram on Wednesday, they announced “their mission complete.”
The plans for some late-night shows were not immediately clear, like “Saturday Night Live” and Comedy Central's “Daily Show,” which had been using guest hosts when the strike hit.
Scripted shows will take longer to return, with actors still on strike and no negotiations yet on the horizon.
On Tuesday night, board members from the writers union approved a contract agreement with studios, bringing the industry at least partly back from a historic halt in production that stretched nearly five months.
Maher had delayed returning to his talk show during
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