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Location : Ether-Sphere Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator Humor : Über Serious
| Subject: Strikers complain as Jay Leno returns Sun Jan 06, 2008 7:59 pm | |
| ay Leno made a triumphant return to late-night television, easily dominating the ratings competition with his chief rival, David Letterman, and delivering a traditional full-length monologue - even though he was performing without his team of 19 writers.
But how Leno was able to accomplish that feat has become the subject of an increasingly fractious dispute between the NBC star and the Writers Guild of America, which has been on strike against the movie studios and television networks for the past two months.
The Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East moved Thursday to prevent Leno from performing any more monologues. But NBC executives said Leno would ignore the strike rules set up by the writers and would tell his scripted jokes as planned on "The Tonight Show."
The dispute could affect the other late-night shows that are without writers because of the strike. Both "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" on NBC and "Jimmy Kimmel Live" on ABC returned to the air this week, and their hosts did not perform scripted monologues.
Comedy Central's two shows, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" with Stephen Colbert, are scheduled to return Monday.
More at: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/04/business/strike.php |
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