By: Danny Jacobs

The mess at NBC involving “The Tonight Show”, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien has already launched a thousand monologue jokes.

But the high-profile kerfuffle might ultimately boil down to something more mundane: contract law, specifically Conan’s deal with the network. Concurring Opinions broke down the case and gives the slight edge to NBC based on the information that has been made public.

The most interesting point to me is that NBC never stated in Conan’s contract when “The Tonight Show” would air, only that he would host something called “The Tonight Show.” That fact, as Lawrence Cunningham on Concurring Opinions and others have noted, might explain why Conan has been arguing his case to the “People of Earth” in the court of public opinion – and winning in the view of many.

HT: Howard Kurtz’s Media Notes.

(Full disclosure: I’m a Letterman guy. I’ve never liked Leno. These days, I flip back and forth between Dave and Conan.)