The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [156]
“What if we cut Jay back to three days?” Gaspin proposed.
“No,” Fiorile said. “Maybe two days.”
“I can’t convince Jay to do just two days,” Gaspin replied, repeating his plea for a little more patience.
Several nights after the call with the station managers, Ludwin dropped by Leno’s stage and ran into Jay. “What are you hearing about our show?” Jay asked.
“Well, since you asked me a direct question,” Ludwin said, “I’m hearing that the affiliates are not happy. They are making noises about their poor lead-ins.”
Jay took it in, looked resolved, and said he would call a few of the affiliates himself to try to win them over.
Meanwhile, still looking for any kind of answer, Gaspin had a wild thought about offering Jay four days a week, but making Saturday and Sunday two of them. He had no idea how the network would sell a package like that. It felt like a mess. Besides, all this desperate scrambling didn’t constitute a creative solution. Instead, it had come to seem to Gaspin like nothing so much as maneuvering to satisfy Jay’s contract, rather than actually solving NBCʹs problems.
Consulting on phone calls with Zucker about the imminent affiliate revolt they had on their hands, Gaspin ran down what he now saw as the range of options he had left: Jay cuts down to a couple of nights a week; he gets canceled and leaves altogether; or they somehow find a way to move him back into late night.
“We haven’t given them enough time,” Zucker protested.
“I know,” Gaspin replied. But it looked as if time had run out anyway.
The alternative Gaspin did not present was canceling Conan and simply returning Jay to The Tonight Show. He did contemplate the possibility of the two hosts somehow sharing the time period. Alternating nights? Alternating weeks? The notions started getting crazy.
When Zucker, eager for another opinion, called Ludwin, Ludwin went right to the recommendation of pulling back Jay to just one night a week—maybe two, at most. Slot the night on Tuesday, when Jay benefited from that Biggest Loser lead-in, and if necessary, maybe add Friday at ten, where he could follow a stable show, the newsmagazine Dateline NBC.
Again the obvious question arose: Would Jay be likely to accept so dramatic a reduction in the routine he loved so much—shows five days a week, year round? Ludwin had his doubts, but, then, he had never believed Jay would accept the ten p.m. idea. He didn’t think they should just rule the possibility out.
Two prominent network employees were not consulted for input or ideas on NBCʹs problem: Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien. No one at NBC thought it wise to tip either host that a high-speed train might be hurtling toward him. What sense did it make to spook them with these still-unsettled proposals?
So both shows continued to churn out their comedy bits and interview segments every weeknight. Debbie Vickers, now convinced more than ever that NBC should never have let the affiliate managers in the door, decided to flout the stations’ wishes and go with what she believed was best for the show. She moved Jay’s stronger comedy departments up into act two, where they belonged. Most of the correspondents bit the dust; the stronger ones got slots deeper into the show. She moved the “10 at 10” segment back to the caboose, leading into the local news—at least the stations would have some name celebrity on the air just before they reported the traffic accidents on the local interstate.
At The Tonight Show, meanwhile, Sarah Palin finally made her appearance, on December 11—five months after her feud with Letterman, but she was on. The show had found a way to include her that was consistent with Conan’s style—not at the desk for an interview, but instead as a participant (and a rather good one) in a comedy bit. And her guest spot was a walk-on—there had been no advance publicity.
William Shatner, a Conan regular, came out for act two, to do a dramatic, poetry-style reading