The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [66]
The cause for Zucker’s concern about the degree of Ludwin’s restful-ness was no mystery to anyone at the meetings. Jay was still winning handily; Conan was . . . well, doing fine. Rick—backed by Nick—never backed down, never wavered in supporting Conan’s ascension to The Tonight Show. The two NBC late-night executives had complete faith in OʹBrien and were willing to defend that faith against any doubters.
In these meetings doubters had begun to speak up with questions about Conan, and they always sprang from the same concern: Should we worry that he’s a little too narrow, a little too hip, a little too New York, a little too young male college guy and not enough middle America, middle age, middle brow?
Ludwin always went to the same place to answer the doubters. The Conan you will see on The Tonight Show is that guy who stood up on that stage at the Emmy Awards and charmed people with broad, easily accessible humor. Conan went into the Emmys with the intention to entertain not only the audience in the Shrine Auditorium but the millions more watching at home. He killed doing bits that were all Conan, bits that pleased his hard-core fans and yet didn’t require newcomers to know any of the backstory to get the comedy. He would do the same at eleven thirty, Ludwin promised.
His stout defense may not have swayed everyone at the meeting, but it certainly did persuade them all that Rick Ludwin had strength in his convictions—and he was unalterably convinced that Conan O’Brien was the right guy at the right time for NBC.
If they had had a vote, a group of television executives from the other networks would have happily stumped for Conan as well. To the hierarchy of ABC and Fox, NBC’s move had the look of a free ticket on the late-night gravy train. Were they really going to usher the dominant late-night star out the door? And leave him open to sign elsewhere, bringing along the $50 million to $100 million in profits that had previously gone to NBC? Was there a catch?
Maybe. It would certainly take strenuous wooing to land Leno, who was famous for his reluctance to change any habit (like those denim shirts and Payless shoes), never mind one as big as whom he would work for. And there was that ungodly long wait. Who knew what NBC might pull in the end, if it really looked as though a competitor was about to grab Leno? Still, it was surely worth trying.
ABC still had its Nightline issue, but the network had shown its hand in 2002 when it chased Letterman. For the right talent the 11:35 hour would be offered up, no matter how loudly the news division might howl to the moon (and the press). Leno was clearly the right talent. It went beyond a no-brainer; if ABC didn’t pursue Jay, the Disney shareholders would have a right to sue them for malfeasance. Bob Iger, who had been named chief executive of Disney in 2005, personally took charge of supervising the Leno courtship, with help from Anne Sweeney, the top ABC corporate executive, and Steve McPherson, the head of entertainment.
Over at Fox, Peter Chernin, still eager to fill the network’s late-night void, might still have preferred Conan, in terms of matching the sensibility of his network. But how could any network pass on the opportunity to sign the biggest dog in the yard? How could Fox stay on the sidelines? Chernin decided again to head up the Fox effort to lure away an NBC late-night star.
Fox’s hunger to grab a slice of late night had not abated since the disappointment of failing to land Conan in 2001. The network had sniffed around for other potential candidates, and in 2007 made a full-frontal assault on what it considered to be a potential game-changing name in late night when Chernin and Fox took a serious run at Billy Crystal.
The well-respected comic, whose already soaring career went stratospheric thanks to his eight-time much-celebrated hosting performances at the Academy Awards, had not previously been part of the big late-night derbies. With movies, one-man Broadway shows, and Oscar duties, Crystal hardly needed