"An ultimatum was put in front of me," Carson Daly told the Los Angeles Times about his decision to bring back his late-night show without writers during the W.G.A. strike. "It was, 'Put a new show on Dec. 3 or 75 people are fired. What's your answer?' " He quickly decided that he couldn't live with the notion of putting loyal staffers out of work. Mr. Daly said he'd heard from a couple of his striking writers, who were "very supportive" of his decision. Asked who at NBC delivered the ultimatum, Daly replied that it was his "immediate bosses" but declined to be more specific.  read more »

While Carson Daly continues to get lambasted for continuing to tape his show during the strike, Conan O'Brien is getting kudos for helping his staff through the shutdown.  read more »

NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly is the first late-night show to go back into production since the Writers Guild of America strike shut down Hollywood more than three weeks ago. And the WGA is not happy about it.

Broadcasting & Cable reports:

“We’re disappointed at Carson Daly’s decision to return to work. Mr. Daly is not a writer and not a member of the WGA, unlike other late-night hosts Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Craig Ferguson, Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who have all resisted network pressure and honored our writers’ picket lines," the WGA said in a statement. "We’re especially appalled at Mr. Daly’s call for non-Guild writers to provide him with jokes. We hope he’ll change his mind and follow the lead of the other late-night hosts.”

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