The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [153]
On the basis of these dinners, Michaels had no doubt that Zucker still stood with Conan.
One factor the internal analysts at NBC couldn’t quite get their heads around was where their future proprietors stood. Comcast, still awaiting regulatory approval, could provide no insight on their plans for NBC. Lorne Michaels, for one, expected a renewed commitment to the broadcast side, after the endless GE-influenced protestations that NBC was now a “cable company.” Comcast—itself a cable megacorp—had to be aware that every NBC affiliate had the ear of its Congress member; assurances that the local stations would remain vital to the enterprise were an essential part of Comcast’s pitch to Washington. Suddenly what the affiliates said or did about ten o’clock had real resonance. The impression Michaels took away from his conversations with Zucker was that Comcast had a simple goal: Get this ten p.m. business behind you before the official change of management.
By mid-November, the calls from affiliate executives were coming at Gaspin at an accelerating pace. Several station managers had set up their own information network and were exchanging panicky reactions based on what they were seeing happen day by day to the eleven p.m. newscasts at the big stations—during a sweep month. Some stations were down as much as 30 percent; others had seen their first-place newscast quickly fall into third place. In their calls to Gaspin, the station representatives had a consistent plea: “You have to do something!”
With no real answer to give them, Gaspin strung them along as best he could. “Let’s just get through the month,” he told them. “Let’s get to December. Let’s get to some repeats. Let’s see how it does during repeats.” But ensconced with his team he began to press for potential solutions. Could there be another play here? What about that old eight o’clock idea that Jay had rejected? Would he reconsider? Was there something else NBC could do to make ten p.m. palatable to the affiliates for the rest of the year? Was there some way to get Jay his fifty-two weeks?
Of course, any change for Jay would involve some alteration of his contract. Gaspin decided it was time to delve into that nettlesome issue. When he did, he was caught short by the deal’s salient, italicized, capitalized feature: NBC had committed to a pay-and-play arrangement with Jay.
Jeff Gaspin had never in his life heard of granting someone a pay-and-play promise in a contract. He tried to work out what it would mean in practice to have guaranteed not only to pay a performer but also to play him—for two years. This demanded serious legal interpretation, and the one Gaspin got from NBC’s legal team left him with little doubt: NBC faced risk—big risk. A strict reading of the contract presented the possibility that the network could be liable for damages in a suit brought by Jay’s very capable attorney. As crazy as it sounded, he could even seek an injunction that would force NBC to keep Jay on the air.
Neither outcome came close to being likely, but neither could they be automatically dismissed. From what Gaspin was hearing from the lawyers, it wasn’t going to be a pretty picture if they simply tried to yank Jay off the air. Gaspin grasped that before he took any action he needed to do one essential thing: get Jay on board with whatever NBC did.
Suddenly the choices narrowed. For the first time another option moved into focus: Cancel Conan, and put Jay back into The Tonight Show. The prime-time issue had spilled over into late night, despite Gaspin’s intentions not to mix the two. Conan’s performance, his numbers—all those things Gaspin had filed under “later”—became urgently relevant.
At the meeting he called to discuss the situation, Gaspin