The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [56]
By some sort of tacit agreement, everyone else in late night acknowledged that Dave needed to speak out first on the tragedy. On September 17 he brought his show back. Talking extemporaneously and from the heart, fighting his emotions all the way, Dave, in an eight-minute monologue from his desk, tried to put the reaction to the attack in some context. He praised New York’s mayor, Rudy Giuliani, and the city’s police and fire departments. He observed, “There is only one thing required of any of us and that is to be courageous, because courage, as you may know, defines all other human behavior. I believe, because I’ve done a little of this myself, pretending to be courageous is just as good as the real thing.” He ended with a salute to the city, saying that if anyone didn’t believe it before, they “could absolutely believe it now: New York City . . . is the greatest city in the world.”
Letterman won unanimous praise for that show and the ones that followed, when he seemingly found just the right moments to weave some wit and comedy into the ongoing gloom. One NBC executive—speaking privately, because his opinion would hardly please the network’s own star—paid Dave the ultimate compliment: “Everybody looked to Dave for the way to do this. If there’s a Johnny out there, it’s Dave.”
That was a comparison Dave himself would surely have disavowed; but it truly was only valid on the cultural level, not the ratings one. Johnny qualified as the all-time winner. Leno ranked as the current one.
Jeff Zucker tried to underline that point in red. “There is no more late-night war,” he declared in 2003. There was only a victor and a vanquished—and NBC had the victor, no matter what Dave’s supporters in the media may have tried to argue. “I think the Letterman show appears more tired,” Zucker suggested, not caring if he drew a penalty for taunting. “I think it’s hard for the national media to accept the fact that Jay is so dominant. The national media has always been more drawn to the dark, brooding cynicism of Dave, rather than the populist wit of Jay.”
How deep in Dave’s craw did comments like that stick? It was impossible to discern from the man himself, silent as always, except when he would let loose on the air with an occasional shot at Jay or NBC. (Every spring brought the Passover joke.) But Letterman did have someone to serve as his public mouthpiece: his executive producer, Rob Burnett. Long the most outspoken Letterman defender, Burnett, in the face of Jay’s continuing ratings superiority, returned fire from a subjective foxhole. “There are two parts of the so-called late-night war,” Burnett said. “One is: Who’s the best? That part of the war is over. Dave won.”
Of course, that pronouncement was not going to stop people from keeping score. The stats had a different message: Jay was winning not only in the ratings but in financial terms as well. According to a cost analysis by the Nielsen ratings company, The Tonight Show in 2003 was able to charge about $65,000 for each thirty-second commercial; for the Late Show the price was about $53,000. Over the course of a year, that would add up to an advantage of tens of millions of dollars for NBC.
Letterman, brooding up in his offices above Broadway, could not escape the box scores and balance sheets. Predisposed to kick himself unmercifully for even the slightest mistake or failing he perceived in himself, he punished staff members who disappointed him in less volatile ways, most often by stopping talking to them