As he has been known to do several times in the past, Jerry Seinfeld made a very poignant observation last night. He was the first guest on the new Jay Leno Show and he said that back in his day, when you said that you were retiring or ending a show, you really were retiring or ending a show. When he said that Seinfeld would be reaching its series finale, he meant it. We never saw a true “new” episode of Seinfeld ever again.

With Jay Leno, he said several months ago that he was done as the host with the Tonight Show. We knew that day was coming for a few years already, since it was announced that Conan O’Brien would be taking over as host for the show. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that Jay would be getting his own new late night talk show at the 10pm time slot. This effectively “unretired” Leno and, based on my viewing of the Jay Leno Show last night, the new show is just a slightly altered version of his old Tonight Show gig.

Is this really the right way to go about conducting business? Does this hurt the integrity of Jay Leno and NBC? Does this hurt NBC’s relationship with Conan O’Brien?

In similar manner, we’ve already witnessed Brett Favre retire from football twice. We’ve also witnessed the star NFL quarterback come out of retirement twice. The sports world was so frustrated with being jerked around on both of those occasions, since Favre said that he retired and then he said that he would think about “unretiring,” not committing to a new decision until several months later. It made for a media circus and an unnecessary level of drama.

In running your own business, when is it acceptable for you to say that something is coming to an end only to say that it is going to come back a few months later?