The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [178]
Rosen told him it wasn’t the best time; Zucker asked if Rosen could call back at his first opportunity.
In his car, on the way home, again accompanied by Jeff Ross, Rosen reached Zucker, who began once more by inquiring about Conan’s state of mind. Rosen reported again that it wasn’t very good.
The bad report seemed to push Zucker past the limit of his patience.
“Have you explained the contract to him?” Zucker asked. “Do you guys understand what’s in the fucking contract? I’m going to tell you right now that I can pay him or play him. I can ice you guys.”
“Jeff, are you threatening me?” Rosen said. “Because if you’re threatening me, I better hire a litigator.” Of course, Rosen was already on that path with Glaser over the contract terms. But if NBC was trying to raise the ante by threatening to fire Conan and keep him off television for the next two years, the litigation route was going to become a fast lane.
The conversation veered back and forth at high volume over NBC’s ability to pay Conan off and sideline his career. Rosen now had much more to discuss with Patty Glaser.
When the blowup got back to Polone, it only confirmed for him the message he had been pounding home at these meetings: Jeff Zucker had the ability to shatter someone’s career like this and then get angry at the victims for reacting to it.
Inside the lower echelons of NBC that weekend, a contingent of Conan supporters found themselves appalled at what had taken place. Conan had always put himself on the line for the network, and for many of the people who worked there.
For some staff members, it was simply hard to believe that the network hierarchy really wanted Conan to stay. How could they put something like this in motion without knowing they were likely to lose this guy? How would it all play out? Once Jay was reestablished at 11:35, did NBC even have the right to take it away from him again at some unspecified future date to give Conan another crack? Wasn’t Jay now raised to the status of Regis Philbin, a television perennial, seventy-seven and still on the air? Conan had taken one leap of faith that he would inherit the show eventually. Would he ever take another?
One executive who intended at least to try to get Conan on board was Nick Bernstein, the second-ranked NBC late-night executive under Rick Ludwin. Bernstein had a good relationship with both late-night hosts, and he found himself almost too stunned to work in the immediate aftermath of that week’s upheaval. If Conan could ever agree to this plan, Bernstein could certainly buy into it. So he sent several e-mails out to Conan and Jeff Ross, more or less pleading with them to see the benefit of sticking around.
At the press tour on Monday, the Fox executive session was dominated by questions about that network’s interest in acquiring Conan—should there be a divorce from NBC. The two top Fox entertainment executives, Peter Rice and Kevin Reilly, did little to hide their enthusiasm for that idea.
Reilly, who took some special enjoyment in NBC’s latest misery, given his own untimely ouster by Zucker, said, “Conan would be a very compatible fit for our brand. He is one of the few guys on the planet that has demonstrated he can do one of these shows every night.” That, he added, “is probably the hardest form in show business.” Reilly also stressed that he did not believe Conan was “damaged goods in the least” and that, as far as he was concerned, “his show was working.”
Reilly made it clear, however, that acquiring Conan would not be like picking up a used car. The Fox stations had just come through a brutal financial downturn and many had invested in syndicated programs for use in late night. He said he agreed with estimates by NBC executives that the start-up costs for a new late-night show could go as high as $70 million.
Still, the gleam in his eye made him look like a guy about to buy a diamond engagement ring.
If Fox executives had reason to be upbeat that Monday, the