V I D E O • A G E OC T O B E R 2 0 1 1 10 BY SARA ALESSI It’s fairly safe to say that nothing in the last decade quite rocked the U.S. television world like the NBC late-night debacle of 2009, when the network tried to juggle Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien as hosts of late-night talk shows and dropped the ball with O’Brien. Late-night TV shows require little more than a set with a desk and some chairs, plus an in-house band, so they cost considerably less than other TV programs. Thus, late-nighters are soft on networks’ pockets, but at the same time generate hard cash — making ratings-winning hosts invaluable. The New York Times TV reporter Bill Carter explores The War For Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy in his new book from Viking (405 pages, $26.95). Carter relied on his own firsthand reporting and interviews from sources such as Rolling Stone magazine to tell the story of NBC’s late-night blunder. Carter does a fairly solid job of objectively presenting the facts and opinions he gathered in interviews with the key players. He introduces the information in an organized, pointed fashion — beginning with background on O’Brien and Leno that is relevant to their actions during the late-night war — that demonstrates the care he took in stepping back to absorb and properly convey the information he gleaned. For instance, to understand why O’Brien agreed to wait five years for a shot at The Tonight Show (which Leno agreed to turn over to him), and why he later walked away from a delayed 12:05 a.m. start time, it’s essential for readers to know how important Tonight was to O’Brien. It’s also important that readers know about Leno’s obsession with ratings and his disinclination to take a vacation (he and his wife, Mavis, rarely vacation together, and Mavis often takes trips while Leno books his act in Las Vegas clubs or remains at home tending to his car collection), in order to understand why Leno took NBC’s 10 p.m. offer to create a new program, The Jay Leno Show, and later switched back to The Tonight Show at its traditional 11:35 timeslot. The book opens with an account of the NBC 2009 New York City Upfronts, where NBC put on its biggest comedy show with its biggest talent to sell Jay Leno at 10 p.m. Carter hurtles readers headfirst into the drama that was unfolding in the world of NBC’s late-night comedy, hooking the readers and inviting them to learn what led NBC into the predicament in which it found itself at the Upfronts. Readers are taken back to 2004, when then NBC CEO Jeff Zucker devised a plan to “Keep the consistently winning Jay as long as possible while also preventing Conan from taking his increasingly impressive talent elsewhere.” According to the plan, Leno would leave The Tonight Show in five years, clearing the way for O’Brien to step in as host. This plan seemed genius to Zucker until it became a real possibility that Leno might find a new home at NBC’s competitor, ABC network. To avoid losing Leno, NBC offered him another comedy show during NBC’s 10 p.m. timeslot, which he accepted. However, when NBC’s affiliate stations began barking about Leno’s horrible 10 p.m. ratings, and O’Brien’s overall viewership consistently sank below David Letterman’s late show ratings on CBS, NBC had to act quickly. Leno’s enthusiasm for returning to 11:35 p.m. contrasted starkly with O’Brien’s devastation at NBC’s plan to move him and The Tonight Show back a half hour to 12:05 a.m. Ultimately, O’Brien left NBC for cable network TBS, while Leno returned to his previous post on The Tonight Show at 11:35. Despite his best efforts to present solely the facts, as with any writing, Carter’s bias at times seeps through, particularly in the diction he uses to describe O’Brien, whom he seems to support. Therefore, it’s important that readers bear this in mind and freely question whether O’Brien was always as gracious as Carter suggests. When Carter tells us that O’Brien once stated, “I wouldn’t want to do anything with NBC that I wouldn’t be able to tell Jay I was doing,” Carter assures the readers that O’Brien “was being entirely sincere.” By using the word “sincere” and speaking of O’Brien’s good intentions, the author paints O’Brien as a “good guy” in the readers’ minds. Most telling is the way Carter describes O’Brien’s approach to leaving The Tonight Show. The author states that on the last episode, “consistent with his approach throughout, [O’Brien] took the high…road” and thanked NBC for making his career possible, while also acknowledging Jay Leno. The readers sense that Leno, in opting not to mention O’Brien when he returned toTonight, did not “take the high road” in Carter’s eyes, falling short of the praise Carter reserves for O’Brien. In describing Leno, Carter at least tries to be impartial, offering two viewpoints: The way both Leno’s supporters and detractors interpreted his actions, allowing readers to decide which side they are on. Throughout the book, Carter makes the readers empathize with these latenight giants. He recreates volatile phone conversations between one of O’Brien’s agents, Rick Rosen, and NBC’s Zucker, depicting Rosen’s disbelief so well that the readers are just as shocked and upset as Rosen was when he heard Zucker shouting at him and demanding that O’Brien make a decision about the time shift immediately. After O’Brien left Tonight and began to accept the reality of his situation, the readers feel his devastation. Carter uses emotional language, writing that O’Brien “still felt shattered to his last bone.” And we also feel bad for Leno when ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! host Jimmy Kimmel (whom Leno tried to become chummy with while considering a move to ABC) turns the tables on him during an interview on The Jay Leno Show. Leno had invited Kimmel onto the show thinking they were allies, but as Kimmel takes his funny but hurtful jabs at Leno — “‘Oh, this is a trick, right? Where you get me to host The Tonight Show and then take it back from me?’” — Carter describes the unsuspecting Leno’s reaction: Leno was “trying to laugh along agreeably” and “smiling as best he could…he just let Kimmel pummel him without really throwing a punch in return.” Carter’s piece is valuable to understanding the dynamics andpolitics of U.S. television and the interactions between executives and stars, and will spark the interest of television fans and professionals alike. He tackles a controversial, sensitive and very public issue with care and taste. Putting the war for late night in perspective while respecting the viewpoints of the many figures involved from the Leno and O’Brien camps couldn’t have been easy, but Carter offers a thorough examination of just what happened when NBC’s late-night television was turned on its head. The Dark Side Of Late-Night Shows B o o k R e v i e w
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