• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“I hear they’re gonna move Jay to ten o’clock.”

In New York, as soon as he left the stage, Conan heard Zucker and Ludwin were coming down to Jeff Ross’s office and wanted him to stop by for a chat. No real worries there; could be about anything. Conan arrived and splayed himself out on Ross’s couch, as he normally did. The two NBC executives were soon escorted in. Zucker greeted both men cheerfully and got right to the point.

“I’ve figured out a way to keep Jay,” he said, with just a little note of triumph in his voice. “At ten o’clock.”

Conan and Ross glanced at each other, a bit unsure what this meant. Finally Ross spoke.

“So . . . ten o’clock? You don’t mean, like, every night?”

Zucker assured them that was the plan. Ross could not restrain his surprise. “He’s going to be on five nights a week at ten?”

“Look,” Zucker said. “This is good for you guys, because he was going to go someplace else.”

Conan, as he often did at big moments, contained himself, letting Ross speak for both of them. When they had discussed it between themselves previously, he and Ross had never conceded the point that Jay was certain to land somewhere else. It always seemed to them that Jay’s hints of leaving were merely leverage to force NBC to come across with something that might finally make him happy. Ross had still leaned toward Jay’s stepping away from television altogether, because if he did defect and then fail at ABC, it would be a notably bad end to his career. Conan likewise couldn’t imagine Jay’s making that ultimate call to leave NBC, given his borderline obsessive-compulsive attachment to the routines of his work schedule. When they had batted it around previously, Conan had always told Ross that, if Jay really wanted to go to ABC, let him. If Jay wanted to end his legacy by jumping to another network and taking on The Tonight Show, he should go right ahead. Game on.

The two men pressed Zucker for details on how long this arrangement would be in place. Zucker glossed over the question without offering specifics, but he did allude to its not necessarily being long term—two years, maybe.

In full spin cycle Zucker stressed, emphasized, underscored that Conan was still getting The Tonight Show, at 11:35 each weeknight; nothing in the least would change for him.

Although Zucker didn’t say it, he believed that just about everyone, including Conan’s agents at Endeavor, preferred this outcome to that three-headed competitive monster, with Letterman factored in. It made no real sense to him to go into that now, though. He had always steered clear of any Dave vs. Jay comparisons in front of Conan and his team, having long since picked up from Conan and his staff what Jeff perceived as a visceral dislike of Leno. They all more or less dismissed him as a hack. It bothered and disappointed Zucker that at the same time they openly celebrated and embraced David Letterman, they denigrated NBCʹs guy. Zucker put it down to their artistic, higher-brow, New York-centric point of view; but to him it merely meant that they never understood or appreciated Jay Leno’s broad appeal. Still, he expected Conan and his people to be better team players than that. You’re on the team, you shouldn’t be revering the other guy and disrespecting your own guy.

The meeting broke up quickly, with Conan saying little and revealing even less.

After Zucker and Ludwin left, the somewhat dazed Ross and Conan took stock. Ross couldn’t help but think back to a phone conversation he had had with Fox’s Gail Berman years earlier when Conan had turned down their offer, preferring the long-range chase of The Tonight Show.

“Remember I said this to you,” Gail had told Ross. “You’re never gonna get The Tonight Show.” At the time Ross had been convinced he was dealing with honorable people and promises would be kept. Who could have foreseen this? Jay at ten? What did it mean, really?

As for Conan, he instantly had a bad feeling. After sixteen years of following Jay Leno, after finally being released into the free air of