WGA STRIKE UPDATE: Daily Show and Colbert Report to Return January 7

Comedy Central shows are latest late-nighters to announce return amid ongoing writers' strike

By Ben Grossman -- Broadcasting & Cable, 12/20/2007 5:38:00 PM

Comedy Central’s The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report are the latest of the late-night shows to announce their return amid the ongoing writers strike. Both shows will be back on the air, without writers, on January 7.

"We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence,” read a statement from the network attributed to hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

“We continue to hold out hope for a swift resolution to the current stalemate that will enable the shows to be complete again,” the network said in a statement.

The shows will return the week following the January 2 resumption of NBC’s late night shows hosted by Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live. All three shows will return without writers.

David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants is expecting to meet Friday with the Writers Guild of America in hopes of negotiating a side deal to allow the CBS shows hosted by Letterman and Craig Ferguson to return as soon as January 2, but with writers.

For full coverage of the strike, click here.