The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [76]
Among those watching closely, and totally approving, was Rick Ludwin. In his capacity as the executive in charge of late night, Ludwin had the assignment of nudging Conan and his team toward expanding his act in anticipation of moving up to The Tonight Show. It wasn’t often an easy task. While receptive to Rick, whom they all respected, the corps around Conan always believed they knew best what made their comedy work. When Ludwin offered suggestions, the Conan staff was invariably polite and professional, but little changed.
The biggest area of concern for Ludwin had always been Conan’s apparent reluctance to get out from behind his desk and do something—anything. The show continued to love its set pieces—“If They Mated” (mash-ups of celebrity photos); “SAT Analogies” (Jordin Sparks is to “I grew up on American Idol” as Paula Abdul is to “I threw up on American Idol”); and “Celebrity Survey” (for the question “My Kids Won’t Shut Up About,” Sarah Jessica Parker wrote G-Force; Brad Pitt wrote Harry Potter; and Britney Spears wrote, “Their immediate need for food, shelter, and medical care, y’all”). But Ludwin laid out some research for Conan and his team indicating that every survey revealed that the audience loved it when a late-night host interacted with the audience. He suggested often that the show find its version of the old Carson “Stump the Band” bit—something they could go to periodically to get Conan off the stage and in with the fans. Rick pointed out that Conan always scored when he riffed with regular people. (That was as true in America as it was in Finland, where he did a week of memorable shows built largely around his playful communicating with Finnish folk.)
That’s why the strike shows so warmed Ludwin’s heart: Conan now had no choice but to mix it up with the audience. He told Ludwin and others that the experience was teaching him what had been missing from his show. When the writers returned, he promised Ludwin, “We’re going to do this kind of stuff and more.”
When the writers did return, however, Ludwin took immediate note. Suddenly the show was right back to doing “New State Quarters” (mottoes on the back of new quarters, like “Nebraska—A great place to be butt-ugly”). As funny and creative as such bits could be, they were all about art cards in front of the camera and Conan reading cue cards from behind his desk. Ludwin knew Conan thought like a writer, was a writer, and so leaned toward fully scripted material. It looked as though the strike was not going to inspire the lasting changes Ludwin was hoping for.
In the end, the strike didn’t really change any of the late-night equations. The numbers rolled out pretty much as they always had, with one exception: The networks had taken in a lot more cash. With no production costs for three months and ratings not that much worse for the repeats they were putting on, network balance sheets, battered for years by sinking ratings and rising expenses, started to look suddenly favorable
“It was like this gold mine for the networks,” one late-night host said. “I went to the Guild and told them, you’re not hurting them, you’re helping them. They’re not even bothered by this. They don’t care.”
At NBC the strike benefits had become apparent almost immediately even as the news from prime-time continued to be miserable. The latest savior selected by Jeff Zucker to head the entertainment division, Ben Silverman (replacing Kevin Reilly), saw the sizzle of his announcement fizzle almost immediately thanks to a combination of the dead calm the strike imposed on the creation of new programming and his own proclivity for attracting unflattering PR.
With all that going on, NBC all but welcomed