During her Sky stand-up special, Katherine Ryan: First Born Daughter, which premiered on Saturday, the Canadian comedian confirmed that she made jokes about Brand’s alleged treatment of women — but claimed that Paramount ultimately stopped her from targeting her Roast Battle co-star.
Ryan did not name Brand during her special, but dropped several unsubtle clues about his identity. It is also well known that she confronted Brand during Roast Battle, with Deadline reporting the news in 2023 after The Times, Sunday Times, and Channel 4 published a joint investigation into his alleged misconduct.
Brand has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. In May, he pleaded not guilty to charges of rape, indecent assault, and sexual assault. In a social media post, the Forgetting Sarah Marshall star said he was “grateful” for the opportunity to defend himself during a trial in 2026. Earlier this month, Brand was charged with two further offences: one of rape and another of sexual assault. He is due to appear in Westminster Magistrates’ Court on January 20 to face the charges.
During her Sky stand-up special, Ryan said: “I was invited on a panel show, and I was so excited to do it, but then I found out that if I went on, I would be sat next to a man whom I firmly believe, but can’t prove to be a c***. And that’s the lawyer’s choice of words, not mine.”
She continued: “Initially, I turned the job down, and then I thought: well, he’ll be there in his unnecessarily tight jeans, won’t he? He’ll be there, finger-banging Tucker Carlson or sucking off a Tibetan monk for views, whatever he does now … I thought I will go on the show, and I made a moral decision.”
Her decision was that she would confront Brand and make jokes about his alleged reputation, “but in a fun way.” She recalled two gags she made about Brand, neither of which made the final edit when Roast Battle screened in the UK in 2018.
Ryan said Brand was “fine with it for a while, until eventually he had a hissy fit and threatened to quit the show.” She continued: “The channel got upset. They didn’t want him to leave, and they issued him a new contract, which he waltzed into my dressing room and threw under my nose the next day. He said: ‘Look, you’re not allowed to be mean to me anymore, because I don’t consent.’”
Ryan added that she had to “be nice” following Comedy Central’s intervention on the show, produced by Fulwell Entertainment. Paramount declined to comment. Ryan and Brand were approached for comment.
Brand left Roast Battle after Season 1 and was replaced by Jonathan Ross. Based on the U.S. show Jeff Ross Presents Roast Battle, Comedy Central‘s format is predicated on comedians making jokes at each other’s expense, with judges — which included Brand and Ryan — considered to be fair game.
Ryan has previously spoken about her experience on Roast Battle in an appearance on BBC series Louis Theroux Interviews... in 2022. Again, she did not name Brand or the show, but went viral for her allegations — something she reflected on in her First Born Daughter special.
“I was so excited to be interviewed by him, and I maybe shouldn’t have done that interview, because I have a disorder where if you ask me a question, I will tell you the answer,” she joked. “What’s the worst that could happen if I talk to Louis Theroux about it? A Times exposé, a Channel 4 documentary?”
Ryan continued: “It’s awkward now, because there is someone in the UK who’s been officially charged with an offense, and when that happens, you’re not allowed to slag them off anymore. Boo.”
Although this week’s episode of South Park was light on the Trump roast, the long-running Comedy Central show didn’t let up on his administration.
In Wednesday’s Season 28 episode ‘Turkey Trot’, Saudi Arabia sponsors the town’s titular Thanksgiving race as all of South Park sets their sights on the $5,000 prize, and Pete Hegseth sets his sights on the local police department in attempt to get Peter Thiel out of jail at the president’s request.
Although the chief of police kicks Hegseth out on his ass, quite literally, the secretary of defense decides to get back at the “woke local police force” with some content, which catches Trump’s attention.
“And Hegseth, don’t just make a bunch of content. Go out and actually do something,” Trump tells him in a phone call. “God, he’s such a douchebag.”
Meanwhile, Cartman is convinced he’s an expert at “race science,” deciding the only person who can help their team cross the finish line is Tolkien Black.
After trying to convince Cartman he’s not a good runner just because he’s Black, Tolkien drops out of the Turkey Trot due to political reasons, as he couldn’t get around Saudi Arabia’s sponsorship. Cartman tries to reason that Americans are just “embracing Saudi Arabia’s desire to change.”
“You want Saudi Arabia to just go back to cutting people up and paying Kevin Hart? Is that what you want?” he asks Tolkien.
As Hegseth realizes the Saudis are in town, he instructs his troops to descend on the town and “get as much content as we possibly can.” Kristi Noem even shows up with Homeland Security, as the two fight for clout.
The chaos is set to a parody of Kenny Loggins’ 1986 single ‘Danger Zone’, with a chorus that goes, “Pete Hegseth‘s a f*cking douche.”
After South Park police break up Hegseth’s raid, the secretary of defense ends up in jail with Thiel.
As if Donald Trump didn’t have enough on his plate this week with the recent Epstein emails release, South Park is continuing to roast the POTUS in this week’s episode.
On Wednesday, audiences reacted in disgust to the Season 28 episode ‘Unholy Birth’, which took aim at Open AI’s Sora featured some an unfortunate homoerotic sex scene between Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
“South Park is definitely going to trigger another White House response tomorrow bc holy s***,” one person wrote on X.
“Thanks for the nightmares I’m gonna have tonight South Park,” another posted.
“Watching south park,” read another tweet. “I’m now traumatized.”
Meanwhile, the episode featured appearances from other cartoons, including Bluey, Totoro and Droopy Dog. “Even Bluey ain’t safe from south park,” one fan wrote.
South Park co-creator Matt Stone previously praised Paramount for “letting us do whatever we want, to their credit,” as Trey Parker said of their reason for continuing to rip Trump and his political cronies, “There’s no getting away from this. It’s like the government is just in your face everywhere you look.”
“Whether it’s the actual government or whether it is all the podcasters and the TikToks and the YouTubes and all of that, and it’s just all political and political because it’s more than political,” added Parker. “It’s pop culture.”
South Park returned with a new episode on Wednesday, focused on online betting, Israel’s war on Gaza, and President Donald Trump’s attempts to abort a baby that’s due after he impregnated Satan. But FCC Chairman Brendan Carr seemed to take the most abuse during the episode, something that was to be expected after Carr tried to get Jimmy Kimmel Live! removed from ABC. Spoilers ahead.
South Park unexpectedly failed to deliver a new episode last week following the death of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk. And while creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said it was due to their own procrastination, there was speculation that it may have had something to do with Kirk’s death. South Park did an episode mocking Kirk’s style of debate on Aug. 6, a month before he was killed on Sept. 10, and that episode has been pulled from the rerun schedule.
But the comedy show didn’t address Kirk at all on Wednesday, even if it touched on some of the downstream effects of his murder. The episode put Brendan Carr, this month’s great villain against free speech, through the ringer as he takes a tumble down some slippery stairs, explosively shits his pants, and is eventually hospitalized while making a Nazi salute.
The episode opens with the boys learning about prediction markets like Polymarket and how to make bets online. One of the bets available is whether Kyle’s mom will strike Gaza and destroy a Palestinian hospital, something that enrages Kyle, who objects to the anti-semitism inherent in the idea and tries to contact someone to get the bet taken down. Kyle tries to complain to the betting company, run by Donald Trump Jr., before he’s directed to a series of different agencies, also overseen by Donald Trump Jr.
Eventually, Kyle is told he needs to get in touch with the FCC, since the bet is “offensive” and the federal communications regulator apparently handles anything offensive these days. Meanwhile, Cartman realizes he can work all of Kyle’s outrage to his advantage, getting people to bet that Kyle’s mom will indeed order a strike on Gaza, while Cartman bets against it.
Trump, who’s largely been the focus of Season 27’s short five-episode run thus far, works hard to get Satan to have a miscarriage, spiking soup with an absurd amount of Plan B. Satan doesn’t want the soup, but Carr dives in, getting diarrhea so explosive that he zooms around the room before crashing out the window into the sky.
JD Vance returned as a character from the 1970s TV show Fantasy Island, seemingly sycophantic and trying to suggest gifts that President Trump can give to Satan’s child. Vance warns that one gift, a kitten, can be toxic for pregnant people, given that toxoplasmosis can cause miscarriages. This, of course, gives Trump the idea to outfit the White House attic with a bunch of cats and kitty litter, which can be released by a trap door onto Satan. Assuming Trump can get Satan to stand in the right place. Again, the FCC chair bears the brunt of Trump’s scheming, getting buried underneath the mountain of kitty litter and cat shit.
Cartman panics when he learns that Kyle’s mom is heading to the Middle East, worried that she may actually hit Gaza and his bet will be ruined. But Kyle’s mom didn’t travel to Israel to enact violence, just give Benjamin Netanyahu a piece of her mind.
Brendan Carr, battered and bruised, is visited by Vance in the hospital, where the vice president reveals himself to be more than just Trump’s lackey. Vance knows exactly what he’s doing by trying to get Satan to have a miscarriage. Because he knows that if Trump and Satan were to have a baby, it would be competition during Vance’s ascendancy to the presidency.
Viewers never learn what happens to Carr, but it seems like a safe bet that he’ll return in future episodes. And that’s consistent with his current trajectory in real life. The FCC chairman successfully campaigned to get Jimmy Kimmel pulled from the airwaves, but that was short-lived. Kimmel returned on Tuesday, and the New York Times reports that he’s still going to exert maximum pressure to get liberal voices purged from the airwaves.
President Trump, who also got Stephen Colbert cancelled, dropped the pretense Tuesday that the “controversy” around Kimmel had anything to do with Charlie Kirk’s death.
“I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled!” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his ‘talent’ was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE,” Trump continued.
Then Trump made it clear that he’s never going to stop.
“He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution,” Trump wrote about Kimmel. “I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings.”
On paper, South Park has been safe from cancellation, if only because Carr and the FCC only regulate the major broadcast stations, not cable. But Trump can apply pressure to private businesses in any number of ways. Disney is reportedly preparing for just that in the wake of Kimmel’s return.
Move over comedians, there’s a new stand-up act in town.
A recently released study from the University of Southern California found that the AI-generated jokes outperformed those crafted by humans.
Nearly 70% of the participants rated ChatGPT jokes as funnier than those written by regular people. By comparison, 25% favored the human jokes and 5% rated the jokes as equally funny.
While there’s evidence out there for how language models perform on analytical tasks, less is known about their creative side, said Drew Gorenz, a doctoral candidate in the psychology program at USC and one of the study’s researchers.
As a comedy enthusiast himself, Gorenz was curious how ChatGPT would stack up to human comedians.
“They don’t know what it feels like to appreciate a good joke,” he said of language models. “They’re mostly just using pattern recognition.”
The results, he added, “tell us a lot of cool things about humor production that perhaps we don’t need to feel emotions involved in a good joke to tell a good one.”
To conduct the study, both ChatGPT and humans were asked to write jokes based on a variety of prompts. One task involved coming up with funny acronyms for a string of letters. Another was a fill-in-the-blank type prompt based on the party game Quiplash, and the third involved writing a humorous way to describe an unpleasant situation. A separate group then rated the results.
For example: When asked to complete the blank for “A lesser talked about room in the White House: ‘__________,’” humans came up with “The White Padded Room” and “The dog house,” while ChatGPT spun up “Lincoln Bedroom’s Alien Conspiracy Corner” and “The Situation Room’s Snack Closet.”
One important thing to note, Gorenz said, is that stand-up comedy jokes are a lot less funny when you see them in the text only format. “Delivery is such a key part of humor production,” he said.
In a second study, researchers measured how ChatGPT jokes fared compared to those crafted by professional comedy writers by asking the AI chatbot to rewrite headlines from the satirical site The Onion, “America’s Finest News Source.”
Here the human writers fared a bit better: the average humor rating was the same for the Onion headlines and those generated by ChatGPT, said Gorenz.
ChatGPT came up with the top-rated headline “Local Man Discovers New Emotion, Still Can’t Describe It Properly.” In second place was one from The Onion: “Man Locks Down Marriage Proposal Just As Hair Loss Becomes Noticeable.”
The USC study comes at a time when the entertainment professionals — comedians included — are fretting over how AI could reshape their jobs.
In January, the estate of George Carlin filed a lawsuit against a media company, alleging it used artificial intelligence to recreate the late standup comic’s style and material.
As far as Gorenz is concerned, the results of the study indicate that ChatGPT could disproportionately disrupt comedy and entertainment, especially given that the bar for accuracy in those industries might be lower when compared to say science, education and journalism.
Still, he doesn’t think America’s favorite stand-up comedians are going anywhere anytime soon. “I don’t think it’s able to create a John Mulaney level joke,” he said.
Jon Stewart is set to host live shows of The Daily Show following the closing night of the Republican & Democratic National Conventions.
The Comedy Central host will broadcast live from Milwaukee on Thursday, July 18th, and Chicago on Thursday, August 22nd.
Stewart will share hosting duties with the News Team throughout the DNC & RNC as part of the show’s Indecision 2024 election coverage.
The Daily Show will broadcast from the Marcus Performing Arts Center in Milwaukee, WI, throughout the RNC and the Athenaeum Center for Thought & Culture in Chicago, IL, during the DNC.
The News Team includes Ronny Chieng, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta, and Desi Lydic, alongside Dulcé Sloan and Lewis Black, with new additions Troy Iwata, Josh Johnson, and Grace Kuhlenschmidt.
The Daily Show will air a full week of shows from the RNC in Milwaukee (July 15-18) and the DNC in Chicago (August 19-22), respectively, airing weeknights at 11 p.m. ET/PT.
As part of Indecision 2024, Stewart will host two live episodes following the presidential debates. He will host the episodes on Thursday, June 27, and Tuesday, September 10, after the debates between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
In addition to his weekly hosting duties on The Daily Show, Stewart also recently took on podcasting with The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart.
“After much reflection, meditation and prayer, I have decided to extend my work week to two days,” Stewart said in a statement. “All hail Comedy Central!”
Ahead of its Season 2 premiere, MTV Entertainment Studios has renewed Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head for a third seaon, it was announced today. Production is already underway on Season 3 of the adult animated series for premiere on Comedy Central in 2025.
Season 2 of the series starring the dynamic duo is set to premiere Wednesday, July 10 at 10 PM on Comedy Central. Additionally, the critically acclaimed film Beavis and Butt-Head Do The Universe, which originally premiered on Paramount+, will also make its Comedy Central debut on Wednesday, July 3 at 10 PM.
Having originally premiered in 1993, Emmy-winning creator Mike Judge has cemented Beavis and Butt-Head as cornerstones in adult animation.
A recent Saturday Night Live sketch with Ryan Gosling and Mikey Day as the titular characters went viral as cast members Heidi Gardner and Kenan Thompson struggled to stay in character as a moderator and professor discussing artificial intelligence.
Created and voiced by writer, producer and director Judge, the characters of Beavis and Butt-Head originated in Judge’s 1992 short film Frog Baseball, which was broadcast by MTV’s animation showcase Liquid Television. After MTV commissioned a full series around the characters, Beavis and Butt-Head ran for seven seasons, from March 8, 1993 to Nov. 28, 1997. The series was revived in 2011 with an eighth season airing on MTV. During its initial run, Beavis and Butt-Head received widespread critical acclaim for its satirical, scathing commentary on society. The show’s popularity spawned various related media, including the theatrical film Beavis and Butt-Head Do America in 1996.
Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head is executive-produced by Judge, Lew Morton and Michael Rotenberg, and Chris Prynoski, Shannon Prynoski, Ben Kalina and Antonio Canobbio for Titmouse.
“I’m not going to retire from shooting my mouth off.” This Friday, D.C. native Lewis Black comes home for his “Goodbye Yeller Brick Road, The Final Tour,” which he insists isn’t his retirement but rather his last national tour.
WTOP’s Jason Fraley previews Lewis Black at the Kennedy Center (Part 1)
He grew up in the D.C. area before finding fame on “The Daily Show” and Pixar’s “Inside Out.”
Lewis Black returns to the Kennedy Center on Friday, May 3. (Courtesy Kennedy Center)
Lewis Black returns to the Kennedy Center on Friday, May 3. (Courtesy Kennedy Center)
This Friday, Lewis Black comes home to the Kennedy Center for his “Goodbye Yeller Brick Road, The Final Tour,” which he insists isn’t his retirement but rather his last national tour.
“I’m not ‘retiring retiring’ … I’m just not going to do 120 to 150 shows a year, I’m not going to be wandering around the country the way I did before,” Black told WTOP. “I will occasionally do a show, I might do a ‘Rant Cast’ that I do live, I might open for someone. … I want to write a little, I want to write either a book or a play and just have a life. … I’ll still be on ‘The Daily Show,’ that’s rolling along. I’m not going to retire from shooting my mouth off.”
Like “The Daily Show,” there’s no shortage of pressing political topics to rant about on stage.
“How do you satirize what’s already satiric?” Black said. “My work is done, the newspaper is reading like [fiction]. … Banning books is beyond belief. They want to take these kids’ books out of the library — where’s the best place to hide a book from a kid? You put it in a library! Then you’ve got the people who are banning the books, a group called Moms For Liberty. How am I supposed to make that funnier? That’s like out of [Kurt] Vonnegut!”
Born in D.C. in 1948, Black graduated from Springbrook High School in Silver Spring, Maryland. After a year at the University of Maryland in College Park, he transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to study playwriting, followed by his Master of Fine Arts at the School of Drama at Yale University in 1977.
“I worked for what essentially became the Round House Theatre, I was their playwright in residence for a year, they’re out in Bethesda now,” Black said. “I really spent time in New York, I ran a space out with some friends and we did one-act plays below a restaurant, we had a bar and a stage downstairs with essentially 100 seats and we’d do shows, we’d do two one-acts a week. It was as much fun and as fulfilling as it is being a standup.”
After dabbling in standup at the West Bank Cafe in New York City, he shifted to comedy full time around age 40.
“I was always kind of doing standup for fun because it interested me,” Black said. “It was a way I could write something and get it out there, because otherwise you send it to a theater and you could wait two years to get an answer. I was fascinated by it. … I got more relaxed on stage, I finally found the persona that I wanted on stage and people seemed to enjoy it and there was more of a response to my comedy than there was to my playwriting.”
He’s best known for his “Back in Black” segments on “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central.
“Being on ‘The Daily Show’ was like having an advertisement for yourself each week,” Black said. “I’d do the ‘Daily Show’ then get on a plane, fly across the country to a comedy club and they’d just seen me the night before on television. … It was huge. Comedy Central ended up putting me and Dave Attell as the face of Comedy Central and it really established both Dave and I, got us out there, got us names and we ended up touring together.”
Now, another generation knows him solely as the voice of Anger in Pixar’s Oscar-winning animated gem “Inside Out” (2015). He’ll soon return for the sequel “Inside Out 2” alongside Amy Poehler on June 14.
“The visuals are extraordinary because it’s Pixar; they just get better and better,” Black said. “The script itself, they’ve added characters that are phenomenal, the new Envy and Anxiety are exceptional as the new emotions, then you’ve got the oldies and goodies. … It’s another step forward in terms of helping kids understand what emotions are. When I was a kid I had no clue! Nobody cared about your emotions; ‘just sit on them and shut up!’”
WTOP’s Jason Fraley previews Lewis Black at the Kennedy Center (Part 2)
Listen to our full conversation on the podcast below:
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Apparently, the powers that be at Paramount Global have decided not to heed the message Roy Wood Jr. mouthed while onstage accepting the Daily Show’s Emmy for outstanding variety talk show: “Hire a host.”
Per Variety, Comedy Central is pivoting away from its search for a new, permanent Daily Show host to replace Trevor Noah. Instead, the network is choosing to rely on its team of Daily Show correspondents and a series of celebrity guest hosts to lead the show in the coming months.
According to Variety’s sources, when The Daily Show returns from its hiatus, there will not be a permanent host replacing Noah, who left The Daily Show after seven years in December of 2022. Instead, the Emmy-winning talk series will rely on its cast of correspondents—which include Desi Lydic, Ronny Chieng, Michael Kosta, and Dulce Sloan—to alternate hosting duties, along with celebrity guest stars. Wood, a longtime and beloved correspondent on The Daily Show, left the series last year because he was passed over for the permanent hosting gig.
“I can’t come up with plan B while still working with plan A,” Wood told NPR in October. “The job of correspondent—it’s not really one where you can juggle multiple things. [And] I think eight years is a good run.”
The search for a permanent replacement for Noah, who took over the job from longtime and beloved Daily Show host Jon Stewart in 2015, has been fraught, to say the least. In the summer of 2023, The Daily Show seemed as if it were coalescing behind comedian and former correspondent Hasan Minhaj. But after a New Yorker article questioned the veracity of Minhaj’s stand-up material and accused Minhaj of elaborating stories involving Islamophobia, Minhaj was reportedly dropped from the running for the Daily Show gig. (Minhaj has vehemently denied the allegations against him.)
In the meantime, celebrity guest hosts including Sarah Silverman, Leslie Jones, Chelsea Handler, Kal Penn, and Charlamagne Tha God have all taken turns behind the desk. But rather than bump one of them up to full-time Daily Show host, according to Variety, Paramount Global executives have decided they “don’t feel ready to choose one at this time” and will instead rely on a “newsroom” concept that relies on a group of correspondents leading the program. Per Variety, they’ll still have their eye out for a permanent host to start…sometime.
Vanity Fair has reached out to Comedy Central for comment.
Actor, writer and comedian Dewayne Perkins joins “CBS Mornings” to discuss his new comedy/horror film, “The Blackening.” The film is about a group of Black friends who reunite for a weekend getaway only to find themselves trapped in a remote cabin with a twisted killer. Perkins discusses transforming his original Comedy Central sketch into a feature film and tackling Black stereotypes in horror films.
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TV and movie writers went on strike Tuesday for the first time in 15 years after negotiations with film studios failed to reach a new contract.
History suggests the walkout could last weeks or even months, meaning a hiatus in production for everything from favorite late-night shows to hit streaming series. Here’s how we got here and what could happen next.
Who is involved?
Some 11,500 film and TV writers belonging to the Writers Guild of America are negotiating with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents eight major studios: Amazon, Apple, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBC Universal, Netflix, Paramount and Sony. (CBS News and Paramount+ are owned by Paramount Global.)
WGA members work in film, TV, animation and fiction podcasts, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Which shows are affected by the writers’ strike?
Late-night shows, which are written daily, are expected to stop production immediately. “The Late Show” on CBS, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC, “The Tonight Show” on NBC, “Late Night” on NBC and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” are expected to turn to reruns starting Tuesday.
Less clear is how daytime talk shows, which tend to rely more on chit-chat by hosts and celebrity interviews, could be affected. Production on ABC’s “The View” continued uninterrupted during the last strike in the 2007-08 season, for example.
Meanwhile, streaming networks aren’t likely to see an immediate impact given that they work on longer timelines than late-night shows.
Some TV show hosts have voiced support for the striking writers. On “The Late Show” Monday night, host Stephen Colbert expressed support for the union.
“Everybody, including myself, hopes both sides reach a deal,” he said. “But I also think that the writers’ demands are not unreasonable. I’m a member of the guild. I support collective bargaining. This nation owes so much to unions.”
Speaking on “Late Night” on Friday, host Seth Meyers, a WGA member, also expressed support for striking writers, while saying a strike “would really be a miserable thing for people to have to go through.”
Writers “are entitled to make a living,” he said. “I think it’s a very reasonable demand that’s being set out by the guild. And I support those demands.”
Why are writers striking?
At the core of the dispute is the explosion in streaming services and its effects, including the erosion of writers’ pay and job security, according to the WGA.
Even as budgets for series have grown, writers are making a smaller share of the money, the guild said. Streaming services use smaller writing staffs, which the industry calls “mini rooms,” and also tend to have shorter seasons than broadcast shows. That leaves some writers scrambling to put together several sources of income in a single season.
On average, showrunners for streaming series make less than half of what showrunners for broadcast series do, the WGA said. And because writers on streaming shows don’t get the back-end payments that have allowed broadcast and screenwriters to make a living, such as syndication and international licensing, the WGA is seeking to secure more pay on the front end for its members.
Since 2018, inflation-adjusted pay for screenwriters has fallen 14%, according to the guild. For writer-producers, pay has sunk 23%.
What are the writers asking for?
The Writers Guild wants total pay increases for members amounting to about $429 million per year, according to the WGA, while the AMPTP’s counter would run $86 million per year.
The number of writers working at guild minimum pay has risen from about a third to about half in the past decade. Meanwhile, writers for comedy-variety shows for streaming services have no minimum pay protections and tend to get paid less than their counterparts in broadcast.
The minimum pay for WGA members varies based on a writer’s title and the length of the individual’s employment contract, but the minimum for the lowest-paid writer is $4,546 per week, according to Variety.
The studios “have closed the door on their labor force and opened the door to writing as an entirely freelance profession,” WGA leadership said Monday in a statement. That has created a “gig economy inside a union workforce,” it added.
Studios counter that they are thinking about the long-term health of the industry. The AMPTP said Monday that the primary sticking points to a deal revolved around the guild’s request for a minimum number of scribes per writer room. The group added that its offer “included generous increases in compensation for writers as well as improvements in streaming residuals.”
A key industry dynamic behind the labor dispute: Hollywood is under increased pressure from Wall Street to turn a profit. After years of lavish spending to expand streaming services, many studios and production companies are slashing spending. For example, the Walt Disney Co. is cutting 7,000 jobs, Warner Bros. Discovery is slashing costs to lessen its debt and Netflix has pumped the brakes on spending growth.
“The current streaming services are largely not profitable. Only Netflix is turning a profit right now,” Alex Weprin, media and business writer at the Hollywood Reporter, told CBS News. “These large entertainment companies, they don’t really have a good sense of how profitable these services are going to be and how much they can afford to pay the writers.”
What does AI have to do with it?
Artificial intelligence is another point of contention in the labor talks, with guild writers asking for strict limits on AI use in scripts. They don’t want to rewrite material generated by AI, nor for AI to rewrite human-created scripts, and they want union-covered material to be excluded from training AI models.
The studios have so far rejected these demands, a position one writer described as “insulting.”
“We are fighting for nothing less than the survival of writing as a viable career,” writer and comic Adam Conover tweeted.
We proposed that AI not be used to undermine our work; they rejected our proposal, and offered an “annual meeting to discuss advances in technology.” Wow, a MEETING?!? Thank you ever so much!!
An insulting counter, just dripping with contempt.
Staff writers, the lowest-paid roles, typically work an average of 29 weeks on a network show for $131,834 annually, or an average of 20 weeks on a streaming show for $90,920. For a writer-producer, the figure is $6,967 per week, according to the trade magazine Variety. For a writer-producer, the figure is $6,967 per week.
Advocates for the studios and producers say that pay is far from the poor-house picture writers present publicly. AMPTP leaders say their priority is “the long-term health and stability of the industry” and that they are dedicated to reaching “a fair and reasonable agreement,” according to the Associated Press.
What are writers allowed to do during the strike?
According to the WGA’s strike rules, writers cannot do any writing or rewriting during the strike. They are barred from attending meetings or negotiating with the studios, pitching new projects, entering agreements to option their work or even attending promotional events for existing projects.
By contrast, they are allowed to accept payment for any writing that’s already been completed. Writer-producers, writer-actors and writer-directors are allowed to do the non-writing part of their job during the strike, but they’re banned from doing any writing no matter how minor, such as revising dialogue or tweaking stage directions.
When was the last writers’ strike?
The last time the film and TV writers put down their keyboards was in 2007-08 in a strike that lasted 100 days.
During that labor action many shows, such as “30 Rock,” “CSI,” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” shortened their seasons while studios pumped out more unscripted reality shows. “Big Brother” and “The Amazing Race” both increased their output. “The Apprentice,” hosted by Donald Trump, got new life when a celebrity version of the shelved show was created to help fill the scripted void.
Among the main concessions the writers won that time were requirements for fledgling streaming shows to hire unionized writers if their budgets were big enough. It was an early harbinger of nearly every entertainment labor fight in the years that followed.
How often have writers gone on strike?
Writers have gone on strike more than any group in Hollywood, according to the AP, with six strikes since 1960. The first strike, in 1960, lasted nearly five months; strikes followed in 1973, 1981 and 1985.
The longest work stoppage, lasting 153 days, came in 1988.
In this episode, Demi pays a visit to the New York apartment of Gianmarco Soresi.
With appearances on Comedy Central and The Late Late Show with James Corden, he’s one of comedy’s rising stars. Based in New York, he’s grown his following through consistent touring, TV gigs, and social media. Although he describes himself as a failed actor, Soresi has landed parts in CBS’s Blue Bloods and the Jennifer Lopez hit movie Hustlers.
Watch him talk to Demi about his career in comedy, how he puts a show together, and his advice for young comics.
Amidst a mass exodus from late-night television that’s brought an end to Full Frontal With Samantha Bee and Desus & Mero, as well as the exits of James Cordenfrom TheLate Late Show and Trevor Noahfrom The Daily Show, it’s easy to wonder who even wants to be a late-night host anymore. The answer to that would be Chelsea Handler—who made her debut behind the Daily Show desk on Monday, and also became the first guest host to openly pitch herself as a permanent replacement.
Comedy Central’s flagship program took a five-week hiatus after Noah’s sudden exit before welcoming guest hosts Leslie Jones, Wanda Sykes, and D.L. Hughley. Each of them played it cool, demurring or downright denying any permanent Daily Show aspirations. But since guest hosting a week of Jimmy Kimmel Live! last summer, Handler says she’s ready to return to the daily TV grind. “Walking into a perfectly run operation, having an A team and me being on my A game—it was just great, every aspect of it. I loved it. It made me remember why I do that, and why I want to do it again,” the longtime Chelsea Lately host recently said on The Daily Beast’s The Last Laugh podcast. “I was like, ‘Oh, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m supposed to be taking the news, regurgitating it out for everybody on a regular basis. That’s what I’m good for.”
Handler helmed her E! series from 2017 to 2014 and was floated as a possible replacement for Dave Letterman before moving on to Netflix’s first talk show, a self-titled venture that lasted just two seasons, from 2016 to 2017. In the lead-up to her week at The Daily Show, Handler positioned herself as the best of both hosting worlds: a legacy pick with years of experience and a breath of fresh air in an industry that’s still somehow male-dominated. “There are too many white men doing the same job,” Handler recently told Variety, adding, “I thought I made a real dent by doing my show and proving to people that you can be a woman and host a late night show, but it seems like people need to be reminded one more time. And I might be that person to remind them.”
For all of her pre-show campaigning, Handler casually sauntered onto the Daily Show stage Monday night, offering a sheepish but warm “Hey, guys” as the warm-up comedian roasted the crowd. She appeared understandably nervous but in high spirits as she introduced her brother Roy, seated in the front row, before promising the audience was “gonna fucking love” the show. (Some audience members seemed predisposed to enjoy the episode—including a few excited fans I spotted watching clips of Handler’s standup before she entered the studio.)
“This is where I get to spend a week talking shit about all the wackjobs and hot messes out there, but I do it sitting behind a desk because I’m a professional,” Handler said in her signature deadpan, shaking off most of the visible nerves at the top of the show. She then shuffled through the day’s headlines—starting off with the Chinese balloon that a U.S. fighter jet shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday. “As you heard, this balloon was the size of three buses,” Handler began. “And for the rich people out there who don’t know what a bus is, they’re those big yellow vehicles that bring Matt Gaetz’s girlfriends to school.”
Handler gamely sparred with correspondent Dulcé Sloan and appeared in a clip spoofing celebrities who take diabetic drug Ozempic for weight loss. (“I need it to host The Daily Show!” she said before tackling a man to the ground.) But it was her skewering of the aforementioned “wackjobs and hot messes” that earned Handler’s biggest laughs.
Comedian Leslie Jones will be the first guest host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” Her first episode airs at 11 p.m., ET, on Tuesday, and Jones will be the first host since Trevor Noah stepped down from the position in December.
Future guest hosts of the show include Wanda Sykes, D.L. Hughley, Chelsea Handler and Sarah Silverman, with Jones set to head the star-studded lineup. In addition to hosting on Tuesday, Jones will remain host through the week, with shows on Wednesday and Thursday as well.
“Get ready, news! I am coming for you,” Jones said in a promo for her upcoming appearance.
Jones is best known for her time on “Saturday Night Live,” where she was a writer and cast member from 2014 to 2019 — roles that she believes prepared her for her time as host, Jones shared in an appearance on “CBS Mornings” on Monday.
She and host Gayle King also joked about Jones’ portrayal of King, starring in a sketch of King’s famous interview with singer R. Kelly, now a convicted sex offender.
Leslie Jones as Gayle King and Kenan Thompson as R. Kelly during the “R. Kelly Interview” Cold Open on Saturday, March 9, 2019.
Will Heath/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Jones is also known for her appearance in the all-women “Ghostbusters” remake alongside fellow former-SNL cast members Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon, as well as Melissa McCarthy.
Jones said that while she feels about her upcoming hosting gig “just like I feel about any job I get,” she is also “anxious to get out there and show them what I can do.”
“I know not everybody is probably going to agree with how I deliver stuff,” added Jones, “But you got to just be able to go be me. So that’s what I’m going to do, is just be me.”
Noah, the former anchor of “The Daily Show,” announced his departure as host in September of last year, with his final episode airing last month. Noah’s tenure with the show lasted seven years — from 2015 to 2022.
“The Daily Show” airs on Comedy Central, which, like CBS News, is part of Paramount Global.
Noah, who has anchored the Comedy Central program for seven years, will air his last episode on Dec. 8, Paramount Global announced Wednesday.
The network will show “a look back at some of the best moments” from his program in the week leading up to the final episode, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Noah became the show’s third host in 2015, after Craig Kilborn and Jon Stewart, respectively.
The entertainment news site reported that the program will return in January. However, it’s unclear who will become its host.
Paramount Media Networks and MTV Entertainment Studios president and CEO Chris McCarthy wrote in a statement that Noah is an “incredible talent who has left an indelible mark” on the satirical news show.
The host allegedly “stunned” executives at Paramount and Comedy Central, sources told The Hollywood Reporter last week, and McCarthy ― along with “staffers with the show and higher up at the conglomerate” ― didn’t learn about Noah’s planned departure until the Sept. 28 announcement on the show.
Noah told his audience late last month that he felt like it was “time.”
“It’s been absolutely amazing. It’s something that I never expected,” he said.
“And I found myself thinking throughout the time, everything we’ve gone through, Trump presidency, the pandemic, the journey, more pandemic. And I realized that after the seven years, my time is up but in the most beautiful way.”
Comedy Central told TMZ that “in time, [the network] will turn to the next chapter of ‘The Daily Show’ and all of our incredible correspondents will be at the top of that list.”
“Until then, we are focused on celebrating Trevor and thanking him for his many contributions,” the network said in a statement.
Trevor Noah has announced that he is departing “The Daily Show.” The 38-year-old broke the news on his show Thursday.
“I realized, after the seven years, my time is up,” Noah said, to an audible gasp from the audience.
The South African comedian took over hosting duties on “The Daily Show” from Jon Stewart in September 2015.
“I never dreamed that I would be here,” Noah said Thursday. “I sort of felt like ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’ I came in for a tour of what the previous show was, and the next thing I know, I was handed the keys.”
Noah did not provide a timeframe for when his last show will be, only saying that “we’ll figure out the timings and the whens. We’ll still be here for the time being.”
