‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,’ ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!,’ ‘Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,’ and More Set Return Dates

Late night is coming back to TV!

Hours after the Writers Guild of America’s strike officially ended, with voting to ratify the WGA’s new deal to come, the hosts of TV’s late-night shows announced when they would return with new episodes. Their return to the small screen means the end of their podcast, Strike Force Five.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (on CBS), Jimmy Kimmel Live! (on ABC), Late Night with Seth Meyers (on NBC), and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (on ABC) will air new episodes on Monday, October 2.

Meanwhile, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver will begin airing new episodes on HBO starting on Sunday, October 1.

TV Line acknowledges that Bill Maher took to Twitter to announce that HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher plans to return on Friday, September 30, making it TV’s first late-night show to return.

The late-night quintet announced the news in a statement on their Strike Force 5 social media accounts.

In the statement, Colbert, Fallon, Kimmel, Meyers, and Oliver described their podcast, which launched on Wednesday, August 30, on Spotify, as “An idea that five men could talk on top of each other for 12 episodes, and maybe somebody would listen.”

“As we say goodbye, we would like to thank all those somebodies. Truly, you were the heroes. We were mostly the heroes, but you were in there, too,” they added.

The podcast heard, “The hosts bring their unique insights, opinions, and humor to the show as they navigate the Hollywood strikes and beyond. Launching August 30 and available across most major podcast platforms, the series will run for at least twelve episodes, with each host serving as a rotating moderator.”

The former The Daily Show host Jon Stewart joined the September 22 episode, “Ep 7: Jon Stewart Makes it Six,” as a guest. Colbert, Fallon, Kimmel, Meyers, and Oliver’s statement announcing the end of Strike Force 5 revealed one guest that would have been its future…maybe.

“We want to thank the entire Strike Force 5 Team, our wives, our special guests, and apologize to Conan O’Brien, who agreed to do the pod, but Stephen forgot to send him any possible dates, and then the strike ended,” they wrote.

Strike Force 5 launched amid the WGA and SAG-AFTRA’s strikes, the latter persists in the name of a fair deal from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) after beginning on July 14. 

All proceeds received by the hosts from the podcast will go to the out-of-work staff from 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. 

Hosted on Spotify’s Megaphone with Spotify as the exclusive sales partner, Strike Force Five is supported by Mint Mobile and Diageo as co-presenting sponsors. Hence, the hosts’ statement read, “Goodbye for now, and hello for late, because we still have a few more episodes, unless Ryan Reynolds cuts off the cash.”

“This is the Strike Force 5 signing off and the Late Night 5 signing back on….” Colbert, Fallon, Kimmel, Meyers, and Oliver’s statement ended. Strike Force Five‘s most recent episode, “Ep 8: The Talk Show Hosts Name Sneaky Great Talk Show Guests,” dropped on Tuesday, September 26, on Spotify.

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