By now many of you have heard the news that Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien will be returning to their respective late night shows on January 2nd (after two months of repeats due to the WGA strike). They will be returning without their writing staff, however. There are also indications that David Letterman's production company "Worldwide Pants" -- I never understood that name -- is negotiating a special waiver deal with the WGA to return to the airwaves with their writers on board. Letterman's company also produces Craig Ferguson's late show which follows him.

I hope so. I'm out of jokes. Some of the writers on the picket lines aren't happy, but Leno, O'Brien, Letterman and also Jimmy Kimmel, have done their part during the strike, paying the salaries of their staff for several weeks out of their own pocket.

It will be interesting to see which big name stars, if any, will cross a picket line. Carson Daly's late-night show returned two weeks ago, and one of the segment producers on that show told me he'd been ordered to do so. Life went on.

In other high profile strikes, well-known federal mediators or prominent politicians and lawyers were called in to break the logjam. That's what's needed here. Back in the ‘60s, there was an 86-day New York newspaper strike, which affected my family; my father, Leonard Lyons, wrote for the New York post and was syndicated nationally. Theodore Kheel was the well-known and universally respected labor lawyer who mediated it, leading to a settlement. He was also the go-to guy in the disastrous New York City transit workers' strike during the Lindsay administration. Along with Mike Quill, the combative union head of the time, the city officials eventually reached a settlement.

Bottom line: this dispute needs binding arbitration, or someone everyone trusts and respects.