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 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 scheduled to return to the air Sunday.
Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," which had been using guest hosts when the strike hit, announced Wednesday that it would return Oct. 16 "with an all-star roster of guest hosts for the remainder of 2023." The plans for "Saturday Night Live" were not immediately clear.
The strikes have had a "catastrophic" impact on late-night television viewing, according to the research firm Samba TV. Without Colbert, Fallon and Kimmel proving fresh, topical material, the broadcast networks have seen late-night viewership declines of between 40% and 50%, according to Ashwin Navin, Samba TV's co-founder. "It remains to be seen how late night will rebound to its previous relevance," he said.
Fallon, Meyers, Kimmel, Colbert and Oliver 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."
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 the ongoing strike by writers and actors, a decision that followed similar pauses by "The Drew Barrymore Show," "The Talk" and "The Jennifer Hudson Show."
The three-year agreement with studios, producers and streaming services includes significant wins in the main areas writers had fought for -- compensation, length of employment, size of staffs and control of artificial intelligence -- matching or nearly equaling what they had sought at the outset of the strike.
The union had sought minimum increases in pay and future residual earnings from shows and will get a raise of between 3.5% and 5% in those areas -- more than the studios had initially offered.
The guild also negotiated new residual payments based on the popularity of streaming shows, where writers will get bonuses for being a part of the most popular shows on Netflix, Max and other services, a proposal studios initially rejected. Many writers on picket lines had complained that they weren't properly paid for helping create heavily watched properties.
On artificial intelligence, the writers got the regulation and control of the emerging technology they had sought. Under the contract, raw, AI-generated storylines will not be regarded as "literary material" -- a term in their contracts for scripts and other story forms a screenwriter produces. This means they won't be competing with computers for screen credits.
Following the writer's strike success, actors announced the specifics of their next negotiation to end their own strike.
The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio and Television Artists announced Wednesday night that strike negotiations with studios would resume Monday. The guild said several studio executives will attend, much as they did during marathon sessions last week that helped bring the nearly five-month writers strike to an end.
Information for this article was contributed by David Bauder of The Associated Press.
Actor Jack Black looks for a picket sign as joins demonstrators outside the Paramount Pictures Studio in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
SAG-AFTRA member John Schmitt, second from right, and others carry signs on the picket line outside Netflix on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, in Los Angeles. Hollywood's writers strike was declared over Tuesday night when board members from their union approved a contract agreement with studios, bringing the industry at least partly back from a historic halt in production. The actors strike continues in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Picketers carry signs on the picket line outside Netflix on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, in Los Angeles. Hollywood's writers strike was declared over Tuesday night when board members from their union approved a contract agreement with studios, bringing the industry at least partly back from a historic halt in production. The actors strike continues in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
WGA and SAG-AFTRA member Michael Hitchcock, center, carries a sign on the picket line outside Paramount Pictures studio on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, in Los Angeles. Hollywood's writers strike was declared over Tuesday night when board members from their union approved a contract agreement with studios, bringing the industry at least partly back from a historic halt in production. The actors strike continues in their bid to get better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)