ByDan Heching, CNNWire
Wednesday, August 30, 2023 3:36AM
The creme de la creme of late night is teaming up for a good cause while their shows remain on hold due to the ongoing writers’ strike.
Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver are joining forces for a new limited podcast entitled “Strike Force Five,” Spotify announced on Tuesday.
The podcast will share “once-private chats” held between the late-night hosts, who began meeting weekly in May after the WGA strike began to discuss “the complexities behind the ongoing Hollywood strikes,” according to Spotify’s announcement.
Proceeds generated by the podcast will go to out-of-work staff from the hosts’ respective shows – “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Night with Seth Meyers,” and “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” Some of these shows have been airing repeat episodes for almost four months now, as strike negotiations between the WGA (Writers’ Guild of America) and AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) drag on.
On the eve of the writers’ strike in early May, Colbert addressed the possibility of a strike in his opening monologue when he featured a picture of all his writers, saying the show wouldn’t happen without them.
The host expressed his support for unions and said while he hoped that a strike could be averted, “I also think that the writers’ demands are not unreasonable.”
“Strike Force Five” will launch on Wednesday and will be available on most major podcast platforms. Spotify said the series will run for at least 12 episodes, with each host serving as a rotating moderator.
