'The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon' Shuts Down as Writers Strike

By Michael Hein

The writers' strike will hit the TV industry fast this time around. The Writers Guild of America officially went on strike on Monday night, and on Tuesday night all of the major broadcast late-night talk shows will be off the air. That includes The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live.

The three biggest late-night shows will be off the air starting on Tuesday, May 2 according to a report by Deadline, but it's less clear how similar shows will be impacted. The Late Show, The Tonight Show and Kimmel will reportedly air re-runs in their usual time slots on Tuesday and are expected to continue doing so if the strike continues. Shows like Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live "will be impacted," but it's not clear yet if they will go off the air immediately. The same is true for premium cable shows Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Real Time with Bill Maher.

Although most industry insiders predicted this strike well in advance, the late-night shows did have some plans lined up for this week that have now fallen through. Colbert would have had actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas as a guest on Tuesday, and the coming days also included actor Michael J. Fox, writer Shonda Rhimes, actor Zach Cherry and news anchor Chris Hayes. Fallon's lineup included Ken Jeong, Emma Chamberlain, Jennifer Lopez, JJ Watt, Elle Fanning and Bowen Yang. Kimmel had Dr. Phil, Gina Rodriguez, The Pixies, Melissa McCarthy, Will Poulter, Ricky Gervais, Anthony Carrigan and Smashing Pumpkins.

The showrunners of these late-night shows all told Deadline that it is no accident they are taking the same approach. All three are keeping in contact and intend to present a unified front in solidarity with the guild and all the other striking writers. The WGA is making a number of demands of studios, negotiating primarily with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). In general, they are asking for a fair update to the rules for compensating writers and assurances that loopholes to avoid paying that compensation will be closed.

Meyers addressed the strike directly on his show on Monday. He said: "I love writing. I love writing for TV. I love writing this show. I love that we get to come in with an idea for what we want to do every day and we get to work on it all afternoon and then I have the pleasure of coming out here. No one is entitled to a job in show business. But for those people who have a job, they are entitled to fair compensation. They are entitled to make a living. I think it's a very reasonable demand that's being set out by the guild. And I support those demands."

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