Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to cross picket lines as well !
By fred | December 21, 2007
As unfortunate as this news is, it was doomed to happen. After Carson Daly a little while ago - no I don’t feel like mentioning Ellen, I mean she had her show went dark for that, 4 minutes? - then the announcement that both Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien would return on January 2nd, followed recently by Jimmy Kimmel to return the same day, and with Letterman still working with the WGA to return in early January as well, Comedy Central’s late night talk were the only ones not to return.
And this changed, as it was announced by Comedy Central that both The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report will return with new episodes starting January 7 :
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report will resume production on January 7 with both shows returning to air that night without their respective writing staffs. The January 7 return follows a scheduled two-week, end-of-year hiatus that was previously built into the shows’ production calendars. We continue to hold out hope for a swift resolution to the current stalemate that will enable the shows to be complete again.
Adding on this, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert released their own brief statement : “We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence.”
As I’ve expressed already in the past, I can understand the situation they were in and the motives for such a decision. With that said, I will hate each and every hosts that not only crosses picket lines to save their non-writing staff jobs, but also joins the AMPTP force and stab writers in the back.
Because on a financial aspect, going back on the air doesn’t just means non-writing staff will get paid again, it also means striking writers no longer earn residuals for repeats that used to be aired instead.
So again, if they add to this their best efforts to do without writers, it only means they are switching sides. As the WGA reminded everyone, while writers themselves they shouldn’t write anything. No sketches or monologues or anything.
They’re not going back on the air to help the AMPTP, the studios and networks to beat the writers down, they’re doing so to help & support non-writing staff. Which is why I feel a bit torn over Conan’s statement, which goes a little both ways : “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.” ; the same can be said about Kimmel’s : “It is time to go back to work. I support my colleagues and friends in the WGA completely and hope this ends both fairly and soon.“I did like better Stewart & Colbert’s words, but let’s all relax, wait and see what happens before coming to any conclusion.
Meanwhile, the WGA issued this new response to the news : “Comedy Central forcing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert back on the air will not give the viewers the quality shows they’ve come to expect. The only way to get the writing staffs back on the job is for the AMPTP companies to come back to the table prepared to negotiate a fair deal with the Writers Guild.“
