Strike Talk...EXTRA Innings...

There was no way that I could wrap up the strike talk in only 3 posts. There's virtually something new to report everyday.

Today's big news: NBC is bringing back the late night comedy/talk shows. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with Conan O'Brien will return in early January without their writers.

It'll be interesting to see how the shows stack up. It must be painful in one respect for the hosts to do their shows. O'Brien was once a member of the WGA.

At the same time, I support what both late night hosts are doing. They've supported their writers for over two months. It's now time to support the rest of their production staff, the staff that they have been paying out of their own pockets, the staff that didn't walk off the job.

To be fair, Letterman has also paid his staff out of his own pocket. In fact, he was one of the FIRST to do so. He also owns his show, while the NBC hosts do not.

I would imagine we will see Letterman back on the air soon. In fact, he is trying to broker a deal with the WGA to go on the air with union writers in an interim agreement. If he does that, he will have one up on his NBC competition, and that should prove quite interesting.

Before the strike, Leno was the ratings leader of late night. What will the strike do to Leno's numbers if he goes head to head with a full staffed Letterman production?

Stay tuned!