'Tonight,' 'Daily Show' may go dark

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- U.S. talk shows that draw much of their comic material from current events could go dark Monday because of the Writers Guild of America strike.

The production of fresh installments of NBC's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," as well as CBS' "Late Show" and "Late, Late Show" and Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "Colbert Report" will likely be halted because of the strike, Variety.com reported.

Leno and Letterman could be on the air Monday, but are expected to show their writing staffs support and stay home from work for at least a while.

The trade paper cites a network insider who said production of new installments of the shows could be halted several weeks, depending on the length of the strike, damaging movie studios' plans to promote their end-of-year movies, many of which are Oscar contenders.

One solution to the promotion problem would be to air reruns of the shows featuring past appearances of stars in new movies.

If TV hosts return to work before the strike ends, it is unclear whether they would be allowed to write their own monologues or if they would simply improvise, Variety.com said.