Late night television hosts Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon, who are both experiencing a pause in production due to the Writers’ Guild of America strike, have stepped forward to express their support and solidarity with their staff by personally paying a week’s worth of salaries out of their own pockets. According to a reliable source, the writers of their shows will also receive health care coverage for the upcoming months until September, with NBC – the home of their network – providing a two week payment package.
The Writer’s Guild of America had voted unanimously last month in order to authorize a strike, a stand-off that informed of their intentions to cease output if negotiations with the production studios and streaming services progressed without the reach of an agreeable agreement. Issues of pay for streaming content, job security and the implementation of Artificial Intelligence for scriptwriting have been chief amongst the WGA’s demands. Meanwhile, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, representing the studios and streaming services behind such powerhouses as Paramount, NBC Universal and Netflix attempted to placate their adversaries with what they deemed to be “generous increases in compensation” along with improvement in streaming residuals. Both sides are yet to agree a settlement.
However, in a rare display of solidarity, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers are willing to pay out of pocket a week of salaries to the writers they employ. This follows public displays of their backing, with Jimmy Fallon expressing his need for writers at the Met Gala in an interview and Seth Meyers praising theWGA for their “unreasonable” demands on his own show of “The Late Night with Seth Meyers”. Notable late-night hosts Stephen Colbert showed his support on his own show, offering his belonging to the same Writer’s Guild of America as evidence of his allegiance.
Elsewhere, CBS (home of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”) and ABC (behind “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”) have yet to comment publicly. Jimmy Fallon has also acknowledged the criticisms leveled at him for skipping a staff meeting earlier in the week of the strike activation, soothing tensions with a surprise appearance at a latter gathering where he could show his solidarity in person.
