The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [165]
Back in Jay’s postshow enclave, Gaspin presented his rationale again, talking it through, this time adding a little high emotion. Speaking of how difficult it had been to find a solution that would not leave either Jay or Conan behind, Gaspin said, “I’m not trying to make Sophie’s choice. I’m really trying to be fair to both of you.”
Jay and Debbie pressed him on the Conan issue: Did Gaspin really think Conan was going to take this?
Gaspin said NBC was about 75 percent sure he would.
“What happens to the staff?” Jay asked. “Do I stay on this lot?”
“Nothing has to change,” Gaspin said.
But Vickers, thinking about the limitations of a half-hour show, said she probably wouldn’t need a music department anymore.
“No,” Gaspin said. “That is not going to be part of the conversation. As far as I’m concerned we are doing this to you. You shouldn’t have to suffer. You don’t have to make a change.”
Gaspin had already made all the financial calculations. All three late-night shows had budgets in place—for a year, anyway. Getting Jay out of ten and inserting a roster of dramas would surely generate a ratings lift and more revenue, which could offset the extra costs in late night. That would not be the case in future budgets, but Gaspin figured he would deal with that the following year. For now, Jay could do whatever show he wanted in the half-hour format, with everything the staff expected of the show.
“Nobody loses a paycheck?” Jay asked. Gaspin guaranteed that would not happen.
ʺOK,ʺ Jay said. “I’m in.”
Debbie pressed the Conan issue again: Was he really going to say yes? Gaspin expressed confidence that NBC could get him to agree.
Both Leno and Vickers saw logic in that conclusion. Numbers addicts as they were, they could not imagine that Conan and his team could be unaware of the ratings he was scoring. He had to know, they believed, that he wasn’t doing well—and not just because of their own woeful performance in the ten o’clock hour. After all, Conan had started to lose chunks of viewers back in the summer before Jay even came on. Vickers figured neither show was a winner. Why not try to reformulate something while both shows were still on the air? Regroup and come back in some new incarnation; that made sense to Debbie.
Jay translated it in his typical “regular-guy” fashion. He envisioned how things like this went down in the real world:
The boss gives you a job to do and it doesn’t go well. So they send you to the regional office in Des Moines to get your sales up. The half hour at 11:30 for him, and the move to midnight for Conan, those amounted to the Des Moines office. You go, you get your sales up, and when your numbers look good again, you come back to the national office. As Jay saw it, that was how real life tended to work. You’re a salesman. You did gangbusters in one market, so they move you to a new market and it doesn’t work out. Now your old market is filled so you have to prove yourself in a different market.
Vickers did realize that they might be naive, they might be chumps. David Letterman, with his perpetual adversarial relationship with his own network, would never roll over this way. But they really did feel a debt of gratitude to NBC, as pathetic as that made them sound in this day and age.
“If Conan’s in, we’re in,” Vickers said.
They stood up and shook hands on it.
Gaspin wasted no time. Feeling a surge of confidence, he called Jeff Zucker, who had just arrived in LA to help the Comcast team get acquainted with Hollywood. Gaspin told him he thought this was really going to work.
Jeff Zucker was thrilled.
Jeff Gaspin had another constituency he needed to reach. The affiliate meeting he had postponed in December was now imminent, set for the following Tuesday, the twelfth. But with the crucial Conan discussion planned for Monday, it seemed impossible to fly out to meet with the affiliates in New York on Tuesday morning. Besides,