Ellen DeGeneres at centre of strike row

The Writers Guild of America, East has attacked Ellen DeGeneres for continuing to work on her syndicated talk show.

In a statement released to the press, the WGAE accused DeGeneres of not supporting her writers and violating strike rules.

The statement said: "Ellen DeGeneres went back on the air this week after honouring only one day of the writers strike. In anticipation of her plans to tape shows in New York City on November 19th and 20th, the Writers Guild of America, East is extremely disappointed to see that Ellen has chosen not to stand with writers during the strike. Ellen's peers who host comedy/variety shows have chosen to support the writers and help them get a fair contract, Ellen has not. On her first show back, Ellen said she loves and supports her writers, but her actions prove otherwise.

"Ellen has also been performing comedy on her show. Even if Ellen is writing those segments herself, since those segments would normally be written by the writers on strike, she's performing 'struck work'. Ellen is violating the strike rules that were clearly explained to all of the comedy/variety shows."

The WGAE's comments were immediately countered by the show's producer, Telepictures Productions, which drew a distinction between syndicated daytime talkers such as Ellen and Oprah and network-controlled late night programmes such as Jay Leno's Tonight Show.

Telepictures said: "As a syndicated show, the individual stations control when the show airs. If Telepictures does not deliver original episodes of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the stations can move the show out of its time periods, or ultimately hold the company in breach of contract.

"Telepictures provides first run programming to stations they don't control. The network controls their own schedule and programming with the late night shows as Leno, Conan, Kimmel etc."

Further criticism of the WGAE's comments came from the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. In a letter to WGAE executive director Mona Mangan, AFTRA national executive director Kim Roberts wrote: "AFTRA members such as Ms. DeGeneres who are working under the AFTRA Network TV Code are legally required by the no-strike clause of that contract to report to work and perform their AFTRA-covered responsibilities. Ms. DeGeneres, along with thousands of other entertainment industry workers... are reporting to work as legally required."

Mangan replied: "With regard to Ms. DeGeneres, she is a Writers Guild member as well as an AFTRAn. The writing of her show is always done by Writers Guild members and, therefore, constitutes struck work. Beyond any issue of membership, there is the obvious ethical issue, which is clearly present in Ms. DeGeneres' decision to write and produce a show without writers in the face of an industrywide walkout by 12,000 writers. Such a decision cannot be redeemed by your spirited and eloquent defence. I understand that AFTRA cannot call upon Ms. DeGeneres to respect our strike. But the Writers Guild can and must."

DeGeneres' talk show remains in production and on the air along with other daytime talk shows including Oprah.