The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [83]
But they differed about what was likely to happen. Debbie was convinced Jay would end up at ABC; it was the only thing that made sense. Ross insisted, on more than one occasion, “I think he’s gonna retire.”
And Vickers always had the same answer: “You’re out of your mind. I mean, you are out of your mind.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE TEN O’CLOCK SOLUTION
Jimmy Kimmel had come to expect the calls, and throughout the early months of 2008, even after the strike had ended, they came in steadily on his personal line. Never in his life would Kimmel have suspected that it would have come to this, but Jay Leno seemed to be his new BFF. “You really need to do something about your start time,” Jay would tell Kimmel in a familiar line of helpful advice. “It’s killing you.”
Jay had noticed that, despite its officially listed start time of 12:05 a.m., after the half-hour Nightline, Kimmel’s ABC show rarely ever began until 12:06, and sometimes as late as 12:08. Kimmel, who taped the show around seven p.m. in LA and then virtually never saw it on the air (it made him uncomfortable to watch himself), had not noticed how much the start time was sliding.
“You need to press them on this,” Jay advised Kimmel. “The start time has to be consistent.” How would Jimmy’s viewers know what time to change channels, or even start their DVRs, if the start time contained that much variation?
Kimmel never failed to be impressed with Leno’s thorough knowledge of late-night ratings across the board, and he was not a little flattered that Jay seemed to be including him in his comprehensive evaluation of the time period. Jay had also taken to complimenting Kimmel on how much his show had progressed, and how Jimmy himself was growing as a host—and a comic. With Jay, the quality of material always ranked as the highest priority, and he told Jimmy he was more and more impressed by how funny the show was night after night.
But after the advice and the compliments, Jay had another message for Kimmel. He wanted to tell him how much better everything would be, including that start-time issue, if the two of them could get together—like back-to-back on ABC, with Jay at 11:35 and Jimmy at 12:35. It would be a late-night package, he said, just like what he and Conan had had at NBC.
The unspoken implication, of course, was that Jay was far down the road in his consideration of jumping to ABC, and he knew one bit of fallout from a decision in that direction would involve Jimmy Kimmel Live: Jimmy would have to slide back a half hour to make this scenario work. More accurately, Jimmy would have to not make a stink about moving back a half hour. The last thing Jay needed was another displaced host pointing fingers at him for wanting to stay on the air at 11:35.
As Jay pointed out, the 12:35 start time would be better in some ways than what Kimmel had now, both because of that variable in the start time that ABC was throwing in every night and because Jay would be providing a more compatible lead-in than Nightline. Having to follow some depressing or distressing news story was like sticking a knife in any comedy that was set up to open a show. This could really work, Leno insisted.
Jay didn’t really know the terms of Kimmel’s deal with ABC, but a different outside party did: the management of the Fox network. The truth was, Kimmel could not simply be assigned the 12:35 show after Leno if ABC did sign the NBC star, because his deal contained time-period specificity. If ABC tried to move him backward, Kimmel would automatically become a free agent.
Did it make sense, Kimmel wondered, to go backward a half hour after five years on the air? Wouldn’t that play like a demotion? Alternately, there might be a plus to pushing back against the shove to a later hour.