The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [72]
Kimmel and Dixon thought the Fox offer was insulting, not to mention borderline insane. How was this better than trying a sitcom?
He had no reason to mention it to Jimmy, but about the same time Dixon found himself in the middle of a late-night chess game going on elsewhere. In the wake of the failed mission to land David Letterman, ABC had in 2003 made contact about a possible post-Nightline slot for Stewart. The Daily Show had elevated Jon’s profile immensely by that point. Still, this would be a network show, which meant more cachet—and more money. Jon was at least interested enough to listen.
The man at ABC plotting the late-night moves was Lloyd Braun, the same executive who had led the charge to win Letterman. Like everyone else in television, Braun was hugely impressed with how Stewart had transformed The Daily Show into a nightly must-see for news (and comedy) junkies. The circumstance seemed like it might be a simple game of pitch and catch. ABC had only to toss the offer out there in a formal way, Stewart would pull it in, and they would be in business.
But Braun hesitated. As great as Jon was in this new show, it was still cable. And some might argue that it was, of all things, too smart. Would Jon’s scintillating wit and scalpel-sharp puncturing of politics and media play at a network level? Was he too New York and LA?
And given the public strikeout with Dave, would anyone who could be identified as a “usual suspect” in late night escape a label of second choice? Would a totally new name be better? In his late forties, Braun was a onetime entertainment lawyer who had climbed up the Hollywood ladder from management company to studio head to the top of ABCʹs entertainment division, and he could not afford to make a choice that flopped. With ABC’s prime time near moribund, he had to make this move work.
Roiled by uncertainty, Lloyd went to play golf at the Riviera Club with a friend whose views he had come to trust. Braun waited until midround to bring the issue up. As they stepped onto the ninth green, Braun laid out his late-night dilemma and hit his playing partner with the question he had been waiting with:
“Knowing it could be anyone, someone I’ve never heard of—someone without a name—and knowing I have the luxury of offering the midnight show, if you could pick anyone, anyone at all, who would it be?”
With no hesitation at all, Michael Davies said, “I know the guy.”
By the end of the day, Davies had sent Braun a cassette with Kimmel highlights on it, including an appearance with Letterman. Braun found himself charmed. He needed to learn more about this guy quickly, but there was a troublesome problem. Braun couldn’t simply ask Jimmy’s agent for material, because that agent, Dixon, also represented Stewart, and Braun did not want to spook a guy who was still his first choice. It was an awkward situation, even for the frequently conflicted business of showbiz agenting.
So Braun accumulated the material he needed elsewhere. Even amid the depths of taste the comedy sometimes reached on The Man Show, Braun thought he detected a real intelligence at work. Kimmel seemed much cleverer than the material. He needed to talk to him.
The feint was that ABC might consider Kimmel for a show at one a.m. That was better than a show in Minneapolis, so Jimmy went to lunch with Braun. He knocked Lloyd’s socks off with his “wicked smarts” and his blue-collar charm.
At home with a stack of