It’s official: The Writers’ Guild of America strike has begun. The news was announced on May 1 after last-minute attempts to reach an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) broke down ahead of the final bargaining deadline. Late-night television shows will be the first productions to be affected, since they’re unable to bank episodes ahead of time due to their topical content. These shows are technically allowed to remain on air according to WGA rules, but if they do, they’ll bear little resemblance to the shows you know and love. They’ll feature nomor monologues or prewritten sketches and desk bits — just guest interviews and other unscripted passages of time. Look nomor further than this clip of Late Night With Conan O’Brien during last WGA strike in 2007–8, in which O’Brien wastes time on the air by timing how long he can spin his wedding ring on his desk. The immediate future of late night may very well be this bleak.
What happened to late night during the 2007–8 WGA strike?
When the WGA went on strike on November 5, 2007, The Tonight Show Starring Jay Leno, Late Night With Conan O’Brien, The Late Show With David Letterman, The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, Real Time With Bill Maher, and Last Call With Carson Daly all halted production immediately. About six weeks later, when negotiations between the WGA and AMPTP broke down, all of these shows announced plans to return to the air in January 2008, citing a need to get their other crew members back to work. (Last Call With Carson Daly was the sole show to return earlier.) The Late Show and The Late Late Show were able to return to air with writers because Letterman’s Worldwide Pants company licensed both properties to CBS, allowing it to negotiate a separate deal with the WGA. All other shows were produced without writers until the conclusion of the WGA strike on February 12, 2008. With the exception of Carson Daly, all other late-night hosts were able to secure payment for their non-striking staffs during their periods off the air, either through working with the network (Colbert and Stewart) or by paying their salaries out of their own funds (Leno, Letterman, Kimmel, and O’Brien).