Letterman gets contract extended to 2010

Almost a year ago, David Letterman let slip on the Late Show that he was only thinking of staying only two or three more years. Of course, his reps denied that he meant anything by that, nipping that speculation in the bud right away.

It looks like they were right.

Reuters is reporting that CBS has extended Letterman's contract until the fall of 2010. No terms were revealed. By the contract ends, Letterman will be (gulp) 63 years old, so it's no automatic that he'll extend his contract in '10. But you've got to wonder if by then CBS will be looking to go a little younger, as NBC did when they pushed out Letterman's mentor, Johnny Carson, who was 67 when he ended his run on The Tonight Show in 1992. The ironic thing is, by the time the contract expires, he will no longer be competing against Jay Leno, but against the man who took his place on Late Night, Conan O'Brien.

By the way, if you include his time on NBC (hey, Dave does that all the time), Letterman will have been in late night for over 28 years by the time this contract expires. Even if he doesn't push to match Carson's longevity record, this has got to put him in the same legendary category as Johnny. Given how "out there" his show was considered to be when it premiered in 1982, that's something I don't think anyone would have expected.