Late Night Talk Shows returning: Info and FAQ

A lot of people by now have heard that certain late night talk shows, which have mostly been on hiatus since the WGA Strike, are now going back on air.

However it might not be clear to viewers and posters why, how, or what the facts are behind the returns of these shows or what their respective hosts think about going back to production.

Here's the information so far on 5 major late night shows that are confirmed to be returning to air by both the hosts and their networks:

-Late Night with Conan O'Brien and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno have both returned to a regular schedule, and are currently filming new episodes. Both celebrity hosts are paying a downsized version of their original production staffs out of pocket, and are still openly supporting the WGA Strike.

-Last Call With Carson Daly went back on air without its writing staff on December 3. According to an article originally published by the Associated Press on December 25, "issued an ultimatum" telling Daly that if he did not "put on a new show by December 3 . . . 75 people would be fired." The article directly quotes Daly as making this statement. You can read the article in its entirety courtesy of Yahoo! News here.

-The Daily show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report will also be returning to air on a regular schedule as of January 7 without their writing staffs. According to an article published by CNN.com, a joint statement was issued to the media by Stewart and Colbert saying that they "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."

We the authors have done some extensive searching for copies of this statement online, but have not found any nor have we the authors established whether Stewart and Colbert did or did not make this statement or if it was actually issued by a publicist(s). You can read the article in its entirety courtesy of CNN.com here.

As always, link, post, and discuss!

J/R