Common Tactic
This is a common tactic when a merger happens.
Basically what they do is "fire" everyone and immediately rehire them back for different salaries/titles/locations.
It effectively cancels their prior contracts and establishes new ones (for everything) with the new company.
Leo had a different situation, he had renegotiated his contract apparently right before/during the merger and the owner decided to cut him off with some kind of clause in his contract.
Anytime someone disappears from a show for a week or more, and no one comments on it like it never happened, iit usually indicates contract disputes or re-negotiations. Radio personalities do this all the time, taking vacations until their contract expires and either coming back or popping up on another station all of a sudden.
Anyone from the Phoenix AZ area might remember "Dave Pratt" on 98 KUPD, he bailed after nearly 20 years on the same station, took a vacation until his contract expired and popped up on an old-fart top 40 station.
The station decided he wasn't "hip" and "in touch" with the current Gen Y crowd and got some 20-somethings who did nothing but Howard Stern-esque d*ck and fart jokes all the time on air in his place. Boy, that was a brilliant move - listenership dropped faster than Courtney Love's head when near a line of cocaine.
It happens *all* the time. No big deal unless someone throws a hissy fit behind the scenes or Comcast gets really nasty publicly (calling the former cast idiots or something).
