U.S. late-night TV shows to return without writers

BEIJING, Dec. 18(Xinhuanet) -- U.S. television networks are hoping to minimise the impact of the Hollywood writers' strike by putting programs back on the air that have been cancelled because of the dispute.

The two NBC late-night talk shows pulled from the airwaves because of the strike are to resume broadcasting in January but without the involvement of writers, the TV network said on Monday as quoted by media reports.

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with Conan O'Brien have been off the air since the beginning of the strike in early November, when writing teams on both programmes walked off the job.

"Now that the talks have broken down and there are no further negotiations scheduled, I feel it's my responsibility to get my 100 non-writing staff, which were laid off, back to work," said Leno.

"We fully support our writers and I think they understand my decision," he added.

The Late Show with David Letterman and the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, which are on NBC's rival CBS, are also likely to return to the airwaves.

Unlike the NBC shows, however, the writing teams on the CBS programs are poised to return to work.

The CBS programs are produced by Worldwide Pants, which said it was prepared to negotiate with the Writers Guild of America on an individual basis.

The writers' union said over the weekend that it was prepared to negotiate with broadcasters and film studios individually after it had failed to make any headway with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which has represented the companies in increasingly acrimonious pay talks.

(Agencies)