RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:
NPR's Kim Masters reports that both "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" went on without material from their writing staffs.
KIM MASTERS: Stewart spent a good portion of his time talking about the striking writers and explaining in sympathetic and satirical terms why the studios are unwilling to pay them a percentage of revenues from the Internet.
(SOUNDBITE OF "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART")
JON STEWART: It's very simple why writers are not paid for Internet content. It's actually a very clever formula. The distance to the screen divided by the size of the screen, squared, times two and a half equals shut the (bleep) up.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
MASTERS: According to Union rules, Stewart, a Writers Guild member, is not permitted to perform material that was written in advance, even if he wrote it himself. Still, his opening monologue did not seemed entirely unscripted. That point was noted in a little end-of-show banter with Stephen Colbert.
(SOUNDBITE OF "THE COLBERT REPORT" SHOW)
STEPHEN COLBERT: Jon, I watched some of your show tonight and I'm going to tell you I'm very alarmed by how prepared you seemed.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: I will be making a phone call to the Writers Guild People's Council for the Preservation of the Written Word.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
COLBERT: It will not go unnoted, sir.
STEWART: Please don't turn me in.
MASTERS: Colbert spent a bit more time on politics, but like Stewart, he made several references to the strike and his lack of the usual scripted material. And he signed off with this.
(SOUNDBITE OF "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART")
STEWART: Writers, I'll see you in my dream. Goodnight everybody.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
MASTERS: Jon Stewart's only guest was Ron Seeber, a labor professor from Cornell University. Stewart asked him a question that he's been on many minds in Hollywood in recent weeks.
(SOUNDBITE OF "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART")
STEWART: Is this intractable and it literally has gone to the point of they're both dead to each other and it goes on for months now?
RON SEEBER: It's never intractable...
MASTERS: Kim Masters, NPR News.