Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/122192/1221460.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 8KB | 158 lines

                                                                                SHOW BUSINESS, Page 66

The Wooing of David Letterman


Rival CBS makes the top bid for the NBC star, who was passed
over for the job of Tonight show host. Now his network must
persuade him to stay or see him become a competitor.

By RICHARD ZOGLIN - With reporting by Patrick E. Cole/Los Angeles
and Daniel S. Levy/New York


    "What are your hours?" Steve Martin wanted to know.
Appearing as a guest on Late Night with David Letterman last
week, Martin surveyed the studio with approving nods, probed the
host for details about his employment perks and asked to try out
his chair. "The only reason I'm doing this," he commented, "is
I happen to be friendly with NBC."

    And so the barrage of "Is Letterman leaving?" jokes
begins. The late-night host, whose unhappiness with NBC has been
a running gag for years, now has a whole new arena for backstage
barbs: he has embraced a rich offer from rival network CBS. No
doubt there will be guests offering career advice, wisecracks
about contract negotiations, maybe even "The Top 10 Things Dave
Wants to Ask Dan Rather." Networks have battled over high-priced
stars before, but never so publicly for such an extended period.
A guide to the principal players and the action so far:

    DAVID LETTERMAN, after a decade as host of the funniest
hour on TV, begins to feel restless in his late-late (12:35
a.m. est) time slot. But when the job he covets -- host of the
Tonight show -- becomes available, it goes to Jay Leno. With his
NBC contract expiring next spring, Letterman hires a new agent,
Hollywood power broker Michael Ovitz, and starts entertaining
offers. Everyone from the Fox Network (which wants to team
Letterman in a late-night bloc with Chevy Chase) to major
syndicators like Viacom (which offers Letterman additional
exposure on its cable networks MTV and VH-1) weighs in with
lucrative bids.

    CBS, long a weak also-ran in late night, sees a chance to
become a contender in the increasingly competitive time period.
After an eight-month courtship (which began when broadcast group
president Howard Stringer approached Letterman at an awards
ceremony in April), the network fashions a deal that would pay
Letterman more than $14 million a year to move his show, more
or less intact, to CBS at 11:30. Letterman would get other
benefits as well, including ownership of his program and a
chance to produce a companion show at 12:30. Letterman tells his
current employer that he would like to accept CBS's offer.

    NBC has a headache. According to a deal struck with
Letterman in the fall, the network has one month to match or
better CBS's offer. But to do so, it would most likely have to
offer him the Tonight show job, something NBC executives have
ruled out. The network's dilemma: if it doesn't replace Leno
with Letterman, it must be prepared to watch Leno compete
against Letterman.

    No one ever said replacing a TV legend would be easy, but
NBC's problems following Johnny Carson's retirement from Tonight
last May have been worse than anyone could have predicted.
Picking Leno as Carson's successor seemed a logical move at the
time; Leno, after all, had drawn good ratings as Carson's
permanent guest host. But Letterman, once regarded as Carson's
heir apparent, was publicly grumpy at being passed over. And
Leno, a well-liked and hardworking comic, has suffered a
shocking run of bad publicity, much of it stemming from the
hardball booking tactics employed by his departed executive
producer Helen Kushnick.

    Now comes the second-guessing. "NBC seems to have made the
wrong call [for the Tonight show]," says Grant Tinker, former
NBC chairman. "I think David should have been the one." Another
top TV executive contends it was a "monumental blunder" for NBC
to pick Leno over Letterman: "They put themselves in the
position of angering a real marketable asset, of which they have
precious few." A member of the Letterman camp argues that
dumping Leno is the only way for NBC to salvage its 30-year
dominance in late night. "Leno is destined for failure," he
says. "NBC has a chance to right a wrong."

    Though there have been reports that NBC president Robert
Wright favors Letterman for the Tonight job, NBC program
executives insist they are happy with Leno and contemplate no
change. Leno's ratings, they point out, are on the rise, from
a low of 4.1 in August to 4.6 for the important November sweeps.
That is still substantially behind Carson's 5.4 score of a year
earlier, but it does include a slightly higher proportion of the
young viewers most sought by advertisers. Opinion on Madison
Avenue is mixed: some call Leno's performance disappointing;
others are upbeat. "Leno is holding up quite well with all the
competition that has been thrown against him," says Richard J.
Kostyra, executive vice president at ad agency J. Walter
Thompson.

    Whatever Leno's performance, there is no assurance that
Letterman, whose hip, edgy irreverence seems to alienate as many
viewers as it attracts, could do any better. "Dave is a unique
personality with a very defined audience makeup," says an NBC
executive. "We don't know that that will work at 11:30." Money
is also an argument in favor of the status quo; Leno makes just
$3 million a year. (Letterman currently pulls in $6 million.)
NBC, moreover, has lined up an attractive candidate to replace
Letterman: Dana Carvey of Saturday Night Live.

    Not that NBC is ready to surrender Letterman just yet. The
network could offer him other inducements in lieu of the Tonight
spot, such as a series of prime-time specials. If NBC can match
CBS's offer, Letterman is obliged by his contract to remain. nbc
executives will argue that CBS's 11:30 time period is partly
illusory, since roughly a third of CBS's affiliates delay the
network's late-night programming (currently a rotating series
of crime shows) in favor of syndicated fare like Love Connection
or M*A*S*H reruns.

    Still, a Letterman-vs.-Leno matchup would be one of the
most intriguing in TV history. Though they are nearly the same
age (Letterman is 45, Leno 42) and have similar roots in
stand-up comedy, the two seem to represent different
show-business generations. Letterman, with his subversive antics
and ironic attitude, does not so much act as host for a talk
show as satirize talk shows. He is following a trail blazed by
Carson, who introduced a self-parodying subtext. Carson's famous
"savers" -- ad-libs to salvage jokes that bombed -- along with
his conspiratorial asides to the audience during corny bits like
Aunt Blabby and Carnac, were a way of making the comedian
himself the butt of the joke.

    Leno, however, is a throwback to a pre-Carson era. He
barrels through his joke-packed monologue with scarcely a
sidelong glance, and cackles cheerfully at every lame anecdote
that guests toss out. He rarely apologizes for bad material or
steps out from behind the performer's mask. He still believes,
almost quaintly, in the possibility of doing a comedic talk show
without irony. At a time when everyone from Dennis Miller to
Garry Shand ling has ripped open the genre for ridicule, Leno's
mission seems almost heroic.

    And maybe doomed. After more than six months as Tonight's
host, Leno is wearing badly. His monologues, though more
incisive than Carson's, have grown wearying in their rat-a-tat
impersonality. His chipper demeanor during interviews is too
forced, and he lacks warmth. Letterman, even in his worst
moments of cranky boredom ("It's hot in here!"), makes more
human contact. No telling whether Letterman can make it as a
mainstream attraction and topple his rival. But if he does, the
Tonight-style talk show just may bite the dust along with Leno.