Sky UK in talks over loss of late-night US talk shows to writers’ strike

EXCLUSIVE: Sky is talking to distributors about how to overcome the loss of four of America’s biggest late-night talk shows after the writers’ strike.

NBC doubled down The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon And Late Night with Seth Meyersalong with HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver And Realtime with Bill Maher, All were broadcast on Sky shortly after the US premiere, and the pay-TV network aired them late night on its linear Sky Comedy channel. Sky is owned by NBC owner Comcast and has licensing agreements with HBO.

Fallon’s show goes dark tonight, while final decisions on the other three’s immediate futures are expected later this week.

Deadline understands Sky is talking to broadcasters about the impact, as it may be forced to suspend its late-night schedules in the coming weeks. Sky will probably revolve around either repeats of the late night shows or replacing them with older scripts, that’s for sure. The Sky Comedy channel shows repeats of various US shows including And just like that… And The office.

The other major US late night talk shows may or may not be available to view in the UK via Paramount+.

Late night shows have been hit hardest by the strike, which was officially announced this morning and is the first in the US in 15 years. The Late Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Tonight Show, Late Night And The daily broadcast It is expected to be all about American repeats

One of the problems in this year’s negotiations between the American Authors’ Guild and the studios was the nightly streaming programs. From the looks of it, writers are working on “new media comedy variety shows” like Peacock’s The Amber Ruffin Showare not eligible for Minimum Basic Agreements, which the WKV fought for.