Late night TV still a boys' club ... except at 30 Rock

I don't agree with the conclusions of Nancy Franklin's review of "The Jay Leno Show" — saying that "it doesn't serve any purpose" seems to willfully turn a blind eye to at least four purposes his show pretty obviously serves:

1. Keep Jay off ABC.
2. Keep affiliates happy on nights when "Law & Order" isn't on.
3. Keep America laughing. (OK, Dave has to do his part, too.)
4. Keep NBC in the black. (Did you know that conservatively, "The Jay Leno Show" is expected to clear a quarter BILLION dollars this season?)

Anyway, I come not to bury my friend but to praise this point deep in her review:

Leno’s and the rest of the nighttime comedy shows are bizarrely lacking in women writers. Did a bomb go off and kill all the women comedy writers and leave the men standing? The other night on the Emmy Awards broadcast, the names of the nominees for best writing on a comedy or variety series were read, and, out of eighty-one people, only seven were women. Leno has no women writers on his show. Neither does David Letterman, and neither does Conan O’Brien. Come on.

And I thought: Wow, seven women are actually writing for late-night TV shows! That's some kind of record! In fact, it's even better than that. If you count the un-nominated shows, there are 11 women writing in late night. A pitifully low total, to be sure, but much higher than a decade ago.

Let's count: The head writer of "Jimmy Kimmel Taped" is Molly McNearney, which I'm sure had nothing to do with that show being overlooked by Emmy. "The Daily Show" has one female writer, Rachel Axler; "The Colbert Report" has two, Allison Silverman and Meredith Scardino.

A commenter pointed out that Craig Ferguson has hired a woman writer. Ha! And two days after posting this, I discovered who she was, because I got to page 17 of Ferguson's winning new memoir, American on Purpose:

"When my mother did finally come home with my baby sister, I was very annoyed. She was a whiney little fartball who constantly stole my thunder, but eventually she grew up to be one of the funniest people I know, although she can still be both farty and whiney.

"She now works as a writer on my television show, where I shamelessly exploit her for my own profit. Sweet revenge."

But the real diversity in late night is in one building, 30 Rockefeller Center -- and no, we're not counting the fake staff of "30 Rock." "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" employs three women: Ali Waller, Morgan Murphy and Amy Ozols. There are also two African-American writers on the show; if you're in New York, you can meet most of the Fallon crew Nov. 9.

And then there's "SNL." Of the 22 (!) people listed in the show's 2009 Emmy nomination for best writing, I count four women: Jessica Conrad, Paula Pell, Marika Sawyer and Emily Spivey. Well, that's one way to achieve diversity — put so many chairs in the room that you'd have to be an idiot to fill them with only white men — though as a strategy for producing outstanding comedy, perhaps not so great. Which reminds me: Wasn't the last time an F-bomb made news on "SNL" another nadir for writing on the show? Well, at least instead of Charles Rocket you had a woman this time swearing like a sailor. There's your progress!