Late night returns in January?

It's starting to look that way, at least according to Variety. The trade is quoting folks close to the matter as saying that several late night hosts might be back on thed air by Jan. 7, if not sooner. You might recall similar rumbles a few weeks back, quickly denied by all sides. This time, though, it might be different. All the late night shows are getting killed in the ratings as the big shows remain off the air, and perhaps more important, there's little sign that contract talks will be resuming anytime soon. Some hosts are even paying their staffs out of their own pockets – and even mega-million dollar salaries can only last so far.

So who will come back first? There's some talk that the Big Four hosts -- David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and Craig Ferguson -- may all return around the same time. While informal discussions between the NBC and CBS camps have continued via backchannels throughout the strike (Daily Variety, Nov. 16), absolutely nothing like that has been agreed upon. Latenight insiders, however, believe Leno and O'Brien are most likely to return in early January, no matter what Letterman decides. NBC has to be concerned about the plunging ratings for both shows, which in recent weeks have lost nearly half their audience.