NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� With the , actors will now get a shot at cutting their own deal with studios and streaming services.
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 , much as they did during marathon sessions last week that helped bring the nearly five-month writers strike to an end.
Monday is the same day that network late-night hosts will return to the air.
Bill Maher led the charge back to work by announcing early Wednesday that his HBO show 鈥淩eal Time with Bill Maher鈥� would be back on the air Friday. By mid-morning, the hosts of NBC鈥檚 鈥淭he Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon鈥� and 鈥淟ate Night with Seth Meyers,鈥� ABC鈥檚 鈥淛immy Kimmel Live,鈥� and 鈥淭he Late Show With Stephen Colbert鈥� on CBS had announced they'd also return, all by Monday. 鈥淟ast Week Tonight鈥� with John Oliver was slated to return to the air Sunday.
Comedy Central鈥檚 鈥淭he Daily Show,鈥� which had been using guest hosts when the strike hit, announced Wednesday that it would return Oct. 16 鈥渨ith an all-star roster of guest hosts for the remainder of 2023.鈥� The plans for 鈥淪aturday Night Live鈥� were not immediately clear.
The strikes have had a 鈥渃atastrophic鈥� 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%, Ashwin Navin, Samba TV co-founder. 鈥淚t remains to be seen how late night will rebound to its previous relevance,鈥� he said.
Fallon, Meyers, Kimmel, Colbert and Oliver spent the latter part of the strike teaming up for a popular podcast called 鈥� named after their personal text chain and with all proceeds benefiting their out-of-work writers. On Instagram on Wednesday,
Scripted shows will take longer to return due to the actors strike.
On Tuesday night, board members from the writers union approved a , 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 by 鈥淭he Drew Barrymore Show,鈥� 鈥淭he Talk鈥� and 鈥淭he Jennifer Hudson Show.鈥�
The three-year agreement with studios, producers and streaming services includes significant wins in the main areas writers had fought for 鈥� compensation, length of employment, size of staffs and control of artificial intelligence 鈥� 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 鈥� 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鈥檛 properly paid for helping create heavily watched properties.
On artificial intelligence, the writers of the emerging technology they had sought. Under the contract, raw, AI-generated storylines will not be regarded as 鈥渓iterary material鈥� 鈥� a term in their contracts for scripts and other story forms a screenwriter produces. This means they won鈥檛 be competing with computers for screen credits. Nor will AI-generated stories be considered 鈥渟ource鈥� material, their contractual language for the novels, video games or other works that writers may adapt into scripts.
Writers have the right under the deal to use artificial intelligence in their process if the company they are working for agrees and other conditions are met. But companies cannot require a writer to use artificial intelligence.
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Media Writer David Bauder contributed to this report. Dalton reported from Los Angeles.
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For more on the writers and actors strikes, visit:
Mark Kennedy And Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press
