Worldwide Pants doesn't want anyone to lose his shirt.

David Letterman's production company, which owns both The Late Show and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, told non-writing staffers this week that it will continue to pay them throughout the end of the year, even if both shows remain in rerun-mode.

Both CBS shows switched to repeats Nov. 5 when the Writers Guild of America strike officially kicked off, leaving late-night TV and scripted series in the lurch as scribes in Los Angeles and New York took to the picket lines in opposition to networks' and studios' refusal to meet the union's new contract demands.

CBS and NBC are holding out hope that Letterman, Ferguson, Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno, who has adamantly refused to cross the picket line at the Peacock Network's Burbank studio, will return sooner rather than later—as Johnny Carson reluctantly did during the last writers strike in 1988, which lasted nearly six months. In fact, off-the-record talks are currently underway to have the hosts return as early as next month, Variety reported Thursday.

But, as all of the networks not planning on showcasing a four-hour American Idol premiere in January have realized, it doesn't hurt to have a Plan B.

"Next week's tapings of The Late Show and The Late Late Show have been cancelled and we will continue to make a week-by-week determination about future tapings," Worldwide Pants Inc. spokesman Steven Rubenstein said Thursday in a statement obtained by E! News.

"However, it is important to Dave that our staff members have some degree of support during this uncertain time. Therefore, Worldwide Pants, which independently produces both shows, will continue to pay the non-writing staff of the shows—fully compensating lower-salaried employees, and providing a substantial portion of salaries for those at the higher end—at least through the end of the year.

"Of course, we all want to get back to work as soon as possible, and it remains our hope that both sides in this dispute will make progress toward that end. In the meantime, we will continue monitoring this situation closely as we make decisions regarding our future production schedule."

What happens next is anyone's guess, but at least Letterman's benevolence appears to have loosened the purse strings over at NBC a bit.

A network spokeswoman said Thursday afternoon that non-writing staff members of The Tonight Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Last Call with Carson Daley will not start getting the boot as of Friday, as was previously announced last week. Instead, employees will continue to receive their salaries for at least the next two weeks.

Ratings are down during that 11:30 p.m.-2 a.m. timeslot, as expected, although ABC's Nightline has received a welcome boost in viewership as insomniacs grow tired of rehashed celebrity interviews. (Although the repeat of Letterman grilling Paris about jail was promoted heavily yesterday.)

Meanwhile, as befitting a writers strike, written communication has been forthcoming between the opposing sides.

In response to the full-page ads taken out by the Alliance of Motion Picture & TV Producers in the trades and in the Los Angeles and New York Times defending its position, the WGA said in a statement that the AMPTP is "guilty of what most charitably could be called sins of omission."  

"In our abandoned negotiations, the AMPTP insisted that the residual rate for digital downloading be pegged to the current rate for DVDs, a penurious third of one cent on the dollar. Let’s repeat that: A THIRD OF A PENNY!!" read part of the joint statement from the East and West guilds.

"The AMPTP states that it 'has offered to pay writers a percentage of the revenues the producer receives from licensing streamed content on the Internet.'

"FACT: The AMPTP 'offer' would allow them to continue to air the streamed content FOR FREE for the first six weeks after its initial broadcast release. In other words, the time period during which there would be the most demand from the public and the most bang for the advertising buck. After that time is over, they would throw us a fraction of the bone of whatever’s left…

"Stop spinning and wasting money on expensive ads, AMPTP. Come to the table and bargain."

But while the AMPTP has maintained for the last three weeks that the writers are the ones who are reluctant to reason, full-page ads don’t appear to be helping the alliance win the PR war, either.

A poll conducted by Pepperdine University's business school found that 63 percent of Americans are more inclined to side with the writers—an opinion perhaps buoyed by the popular image of the scrabbling, middle-class wage earner going up against the big, nasty corporate studio.

"You'd expect nothing less when the only real information the public is getting is from sound bites and the issues are as complex as these," AMPTP spokeswoman Barbara Brogliatti said earlier this week.

It'll be more interesting to gauge the public's perception of the walkout, however, after scripted prime-time series start heading into repeats, which they will as soon as next week.

Production on  The Office, Heroes, CBS' entire Monday night comedy block, Back to You, Til Death and K-Ville has shut down, and most of those broadcast dramas and sitcoms still chugging along will have their seasons cut in half. (Premium cable is in better shape, with entire seasons of The Tudors, The Wire, Dexter and Brotherhood in the can and ready to go.)

But even the still-open sets are vulnerable to the increasingly tense industry environment. FX's The Riches was briefly interrupted Thursday when picketers, including writer Tim Lea and showrunner Dmitry Lipkin, across the street from the downtown L.A. shoot were joined by a much louder group of members from the nearby Service Employees International Union headquarters.

To avoid getting the crew in trouble, the writers negotiated a deal with the dark comedy's producers that allowed the shoot to go on after they'd had a chance to speak their piece for about 15 minutes.

Eddie Murphy also got a day off Thursday when picketers showed up at the Pacific Palisades park where the actor was filming a scene for the Paramount Pictures comedy Nowhereland, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Shooting is supposed to resume Friday, with Murphy, on a studio soundstage.

Americans aren't the only ones showing up to support their friendly neighborhood scribes. During a meeting in Montreal Thursday, the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds, which represents more than 21,000 screenwriters, picked Nov. 28 to be a global day of solidarity in honor of the striking Yanks.

"Their fight is our fight," said Writers Guild of Canada president Rebecca Schechter. "Screenwriters around the world are entitled to receive their fair share of revenues from the internet, and that is what our American colleagues are fighting for." 

The WGC has already informed its border-straddling writers who are members of both guilds yet live in the U.S. that they are not permitted to write for Canadian shows. (Scribes with dual memberships who live north of the International Boundary can, however.)

Demonstrations are being planned in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, the U.K., Mexico and France.

"The future of our industry is shifting toward new media," Writers Guild of Great Britain chair Katharine Way said. "Writers have always had to fight for a small share of the revenues generated from their work and this case is no different."