Ratings Surge Goes To...Leno?

Prior to last night's return to the air by Letterman, Leno and their fellow late night hosts, the conventional wisdom was that Dave--whose re-runs have been outscoring Leno's during the strike--would enjoy an up tick that could bring him in front of Leno for an extended run. (A change CBS would dearly love to see--although The Late Show is a $50 million per annum business for them, Dave has trailed Jay in the ratings for over a decade.

Part of the thinking was that Dave, widely advertised as the guy who actually had his staff of writers available thanks to a settlement with the Writers Guild, would catch a push from that and from some hard-to-quantify good will from the goodly percentage of the pubic who support the writers. (Such as his head writer Bill Scheft, seen here on the show's web site taking a poke at his strike adversaries.)

Well, whether it was that Leno guest Mike Huckabee (who began his second segment on the show jaming on electirc bass) has more star power than Dave's combo of Robin Williams and (in an opening cameo) Hillary Clinton, or other factors that may grow clearer in the coming days, the results, as reported by the Associated Press, broke down like this:

Jay Leno's ''Tonight'' show on NBC scored a 5.3 rating and 12 audience share in the nation's 55 largest markets. His return after two months off because of the writers strike earned him his best ratings in two years, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Leno's ratings were up 47 percent over what he achieved before the strike. Meanwhile, David Letterman's CBS ''Late Show'' had a 4.3 rating and 10 share, or 39 percent better than his pre-strike average.

The results held true for the later-night shows as well:

It was the same story for Conan O'Brien's ''Late Night'' on NBC and Craig Ferguson's ''Late Late Show'' on CBS. O'Brien, without writers, had a 2.5 rating and 8 share, up 56 percent from his pre-strike average. Ferguson, whose writers are working because his show is owned by Worldwide Pants, had a 1.9 rating and 6 share. That's up 27 percent.

Nationwide audience estimates are expected later today. A ratings point represents 1,128,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 112.8 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

Tonight Dave hosts satirist Bill Maher, who should bring a few pungent strike observations, and Juno's much-lauded Ellen Page. (Donald Trump, the originally announced guest for the shows return, will bow hard on Friday.) Leno's guest announcements for the remainder of the week are still TBA.

(Robin Williams arrives to tape The Late Show wIth David Letterman on Wednesday night; photo by Jason Kempin/WireImage)