In a move anticipated from the beginning of the writers' strike, NBC today announced that The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Nite with Conan O'Brien will return to production on January 2, but without writers.  The precedent for this was set in 1988 when, after two months of that writers' strike, Johnny Carson returned to television without his writers.  The reason this sort of thing is allowed and not too heavily frowned upon by the WGA is that late night television shows have large crews who make their full-time living on the show.  During a strike, they are out of work.

The Late Show with David Letterman has still not announced its return, but there are some encouraging developments.  Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company (which owns both The Late Show and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson) is seeking to reach an interim agreement with the WGA that would allow the writers to return as well as the entire crew.  This agreement would be separate of CBS.  The networks, when it comes to the late night shows, have almost zero ammunition in negotiations.  Re-runs of the talk shows perform horribly in the ratings.  They want them to come back in any form, just as long as they're new.  If Letterman can reach a deal wherein his writers can come back to work, Leno and Conan probably won't be too far behind. 

For a guy like Conan O'Brien, this is an impossible dilemma.  He got his start as a writer (for The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live) and a WGA member, but he's also solely responsible for the careers of 80+ crew members.  He released a personal statement this morning concurrently with NBC's statement, in which he made clear his support of the writers during the strike, but said that it came down to either returning without the writers or laying off his entire crew.  He summed it up well in his heart felt statement:

“So, it is only after a great deal of thought that I have decided to go back on the air on January 2nd. I will make clear, on the program, my support for the writers and I'll do the best version of Late Night I can under the circumstances. Of course, my show will not be as good. In fact, in moments it may very well be terrible. My sincerest hope is that all of my writers are back soon, working under a contract that provides them everything they deserve."


-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
Source: Variety, The Futon Critic
(Image Courtesy of NBC)