When the coronavirus pandemic went next level in the U.S. this week, shows that involved live audiences — such as Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune — had a back-up plan: Do it without audiences, thereby avoiding contaminated any guests. That was originally the plan for late night talk shows, such as The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers. But now, according to Deadline, those two NBC shows — as well as the daytime program The Wendy Williams Show — will simply go on hiatus.
The switch-over was supposed to start the week of March 16, with Fallon and Meyers, as well as their bands and their guests, playing to empty seats and really just the shows’ crew members. (That’s the format recently adopted by live daytime series, such as The View, Live with Kelly and Ryan, and The Tamron Hall Show.) Instead, the new plan, to suspend the two late night staples, will go into effect on Friday.
The hiatus is currently set to last two weeks, but it could, of course, always go further. “We will continue to monitor the situation closely and make decisions about future shows as we get closer to the start of production,” NBC said in their statement. The two shows join a long line of entertainment content that has been rescheduled, among them the Bond film No Time to Die, Fast and Furious 9, and the live-action remake of Mulan.
(Via Deadline)
