According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jimmy Fallon (Fever Pitch) and Seth Meyers (New Year’sEve) will still make sure their staff is being paid during the Writers Guild of America Strike. Both NBC late-night hosts will help to cover their staff pay during this time. The staffers for both Fallon’s Tonight Show and Meyer’s Late Night recently learned during a meeting that NBC will only cover the first two weeks of pay for both shows and the two hosts will pay the third week. Health insurance for the employees will be guaranteed through September.
Below is a video of Fallon sharing his support of the WGA strike.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the two late-night shows were among the very first to stop production when the WGA began to strike on Tuesday, May 2nd. Tonight Show staffer Sarah Kobos in a Twitter post stated, “at a meeting Jimmy wasn’t even at, we are told NBC decided to stop paying us after this week and end our health insurance after this month if the strike is ongoing. They won’t even tell us if we will technically be furloughed. Just active employees who aren’t paid.”
Down Below are tweets by Kobos sharing information about the staff’s pay.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, back in 2007-2008 late-night hosts had also dipped into their own pockets to cover their staff’s paycheck. After shutting down eventually many went back on the air to ensure that their crew and staff were still being paid and ensured. This also led to the hosts having no writers to write for them so many of their jokes came with criticism that ended shortly after the strike. During the strike, Jay Leno (Space Cowboys) delivered donuts to everyone on the strike as he did in 2007.
Below is a tweet of Leno giving out donuts.