The Late Shift

by Carter, Bill

  The relationship seemed so bizarre that this same observer concluded, “I don’t think Jay saw the dynamics of the relationship at all. I don’t know that he could take it from point A to point B and say, ‘If she’s doing this to me, she’s doing it to others.’ Denial is a very interesting phenomenon. If he grew up as a kid keying into denial, what does he know? He cannot know whatever he chooses not to know.”

  NBC’s position was not much different from Jay’s. The network’s executives were apparently choosing not to know things they could have known. But at that time the entire network was reeling: Prime time had hit bottom. Problems sprang up everywhere. The Olympics were looming, and NBC’s grandiose plan to pay for them, a package of supplemental pay-per-view coverage called the Triplecast, was a fiasco. Helen might be running the wackiest ship in late night, but NBC had other, more pressing problems to deal with. “An enormous amount of avoidance techniques were being employed,” a senior NBC executive in Burbank said.

  Still, as much as NBC tried to avoid it, the inevitable was gathering speed and hurtling down the track right at them.

  7

  PSYCHOLOGY 101

  Jeff Sagansky and Rod Perth drove up to the gleaming, white-stone-and-glass, half-arc facade of CAA’s headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard, and the first person they saw was David Letterman. He was walking from the garage across the sidewalk toward the front steps, in jeans, T-shirt, and blazer, holding an unlit cigar in his left hand. Sagansky and Perth, two senior CBS programming executives, feeling like a couple of kids who wanted to arrive less conspicuously, circled the block so Dave wouldn’t see them drive up. It was Monday morning, July 27, 1992 and the CBS executives were scheduled to meet and pitch with Letterman and CAA.

  Howard Stringer was already upstairs in the CAA conference room. He had interrupted his summer vacation to fly out the night before, at the specific request of Robert Morton, who had called over the weekend to tell him he’d see him in LA. Stringer had said he wasn’t going, but was instead sending his West Coast executives to make the pitch. Morton had jumped all over Stringer, assuring him that these pitch meetings were more than just an opportunity to show the network’s colors. They were going to be extremely important, and he really thought Stringer, the man leading the CBS pursuit of David Letterman, ought to be there. As Stringer had understood it from CAA, this was just an early meeting. He didn’t know who else was going to be there, from what other television entity. But Stringer took his cue from Morton. If Letterman thought it was crucial, then surely Stringer would be there. The CBS president hurriedly grabbed the one suit and shirt combination he had out in East Hampton and got to the airport. When he arrived in L.A., Stringer found he had brought no cuff links for his shirt. So here he stood, grinning and greeting in Michael Ovitz’s conference room, wearing his traveling suit and shirt, with two tightly wound paper clips as cuff links.

  Sagansky and Perth joined Stringer in the conference room and then the Letterman contingent entered: Dave, Peter Lassally, Robert Morton and from CAA. Lee Gabler, and Jay Maloney. Both the CBS executives and the Letterman crew were struck by the California ascetic style of the meeting: the Zen-like conference room, almost nothing to eat—no sweet rolls, no doughnuts, just a plate of watermelon. When Perth got up to take some melon, Letterman said, “Hey Rod, sit down. That’s for Lucie Salhany.” Dave expected to see Salhany, then head of Paramount Television, at another session later that day.

  The tone of the meeting was loose and informal, and very quickly Howard Stringer’s sense of humor had taken over. He had just flown overnight, with no prepared presentation, and here he was standing in front of this panel of people wearing his paper clips. The Welsh-born Stringer felt as if he were being interviewed for the university entrance exams at Oxford. But he swung into the pitch, unleashing his Welsh charm and eloquence. Most things that Stringer said simply sounded better than anybody else in television because of his classy accent and occasionally quaint Britishisms.

  As Stringer had learned in a prepitch conversation with Gabler, more than a half-dozen pitches had been prepared for a two-day session. Nobody was there to negotiate; that was off-limits under Dave’s NBC contract. They were all there to sell themselves and their companies. For Stringer that meant presenting a sense of why Letterman would fit in so beautifully at CBS, a network with such a rich history and tradition. He skirted over the fact that CBS had no history or tradition at all in late night. But he talked of the network’s growing power in prime time and the strength of the CBS affiliate lineup. What he really wanted to show was the impressive style of the overall CBS organization, what strong executives it had, and its coherent programming strategy. He also decided the meeting was loose enough for him to take a few shots at the prospective competition. So he said Letterman could never be comfortable linked up with an unreliable situation like syndication: “Those companies are a place, not a home,” Stringer said. ABC still had “Nightline,” Stringer pointed out, and nothing had succeeded after “Nightline” because it was such a tough act to follow. And as for Fox, “You’re much too decent a person to go with Fox,” Stringer said.

  He got laughs, but Letterman also had questions to ask—smart questions. Like how CBS would go about adding stations beyond the relative few that carried the network’s lineup of late-night crime shows. Letterman wanted to know what it would mean to his audience to be at CBS instead of NBC. The CBS executives realized they were dealing with more than a star; they were dealing with an experienced, knowledgeable broadcaster.

  The CBS meeting went on for about forty-five minutes. Stringer left feeling that it had been fun and worthwhile, if only because CBS got to give a broad picture of its strengths, and none of his people had said anything that would ruin the network’s chances with Letterman. He also felt a vast sense of relief that Morton had picked up a phone and called him, because he heard the names of who was going to be in subsequent pitch meetings and it sounded like an all-star lineup of every heavy hitter in the business.

  CBS was followed by the team from Fox, and it was headed by the biggest name of all, Rupert Murdoch, the international media mogul who owned Fox Inc. Murdoch was so giant a figure that Ovitz, who intentionally took none of the pitch meetings himself—wanting the pitchers to direct themselves to Letterman, not him—did duck into the conference room briefly to say hello to Rupert. Murdoch brought his full Fox Broadcasting team with him, including the president, Jamie Kellner, and the head of programming, Peter Chernin. One surprise addition to the Fox team was something of a personal touch: Stu Smiley, once Robert Morton’s roommate in college and for a time one of Dave’s managers, had become an executive at Fox. Fox emphasized the youth of its audience, its maverick style that meshed so well with Letterman’s, and an advantage none of the other players could match: Fox could move Dave up even earlier than Jay; he could play as early as 11:00 P.M. on the Fox network.

  When Columbia Television came in, its number two executive, Alan Levine, apologized profusely that the studio chairman, Peter Guber, couldn’t make the meeting. But Brandon Tartikoff did; he came leading the Paramount presentation, pitching what he said would be the ideal combination: Arsenio and Dave. The Letterman guys just stared at Brandon; Lassally couldn’t believe he expected them to take that seriously. “What do you mean they’re a perfect match?” he asked Tartikoff. “They’re two opposites.” Lassally saw Arsenio as mostly flash and Dave as all substance. He also thought Arsenio’s show was narrowly targeted, aimed at a hip, urban audience, and not grounded in comedy inventiveness, which was what Dave was all about. Tartikoff stressed what great entertainers both men were, but he was never going to win the Letterman guys over by putting Dave in the same strategy with Arsenio.

  For the most part the syndicators were not warmly received. Letterman, who went into the pitch meetings with a strong affinity for network television, came out feeling even less inclined toward syndication. He saw the syndicators as blood-and-guts salesmen, not broadcasters. For the most pa
rt the entire Letterman contingent drew back almost instinctively from the approaches of the syndicators.

  As good as Stringer had been, he didn’t make the best impression in the pitch meetings. Everyone on the Letterman side was most impressed by Bob Iger of ABC. The president of the network’s entertainment division and soon to become president of the network, Iger came completely alone, and the contrast to the other entourages of two and three and four was dramatic and effective. Iger just presented himself as a nice guy and his network as the ideal place for David Letterman. He made no promises about “Nightline,” though weeks earlier the CAA people had dangled to Letterman the possibility that Ted Koppel might be ready to leave the network and how that might throw the 11:30 time period open. Iger said nothing about that. He said he wasn’t sure what the network would do with late-night yet, but he wanted to sell ABC as the right place to be: It had the strongest stations and it had the young audience that fit Letterman’s profile. Iger was low-key and soft-sell, and the furthest thing from stereotypical Hollywood. Perfect for David Letterman.

  On their break from the pitch session, Letterman, Morton, and Lassally went over to Dunhill’s, an L.A., cigar emporium, and sat in a humidor while Dave examined a vintage cigar that the owner said had once belonged to actor Yul Brynner. Peter Lassally, as always, contributed a sobering moment: He pointed out that Brynner had died of lung cancer. But nobody was in a sober mood. They all laughed at the absurdity of what they were witnessing: The captains of the television industry, all pitching their hearts out for David Letterman. The syndicators had mostly eliminated themselves. They laughed out loud at the silliness of the process.

  But these were the top guys in all of television and they were certainly displaying an intense interest in David Letterman. Characteristically, Dave didn’t see it that way. Every time either of the other men would point out how the biggest executives in the business were turning out just to talk to him, Dave would scoff. It was very entertaining, he agreed, but it had nothing to do with him. “This is all Ovitz,” he said, “Ovitz creating a marketplace. It has nothing to do with us really. They’re coming out for Ovitz.”

  After two days of courting, Ovitz had a good idea who the serious players were. So the pitch meetings had accomplished that much. But they had not restored Dave’s confidence. Ovitz decided that David Letterman might be the most insecure star he’d ever dealt with.

  The pitches continued with several other players in New York, all for syndicated deals. The most significant: the Walt Disney Company. Again the biggest of the big turned out; Michael Eisner, chairman of Disney, made the pitch himself. The Letterman team assembled at the Disney headquarters in New York, around the biggest conference table any of them had ever seen. The table was a relic from the days when the office space had been occupied by the Pepsi Company, and Joan Crawford, then running Pepsi, had the table built to the specifications of the existing room. Thus, it could never be removed without cutting it apart.

  The Disney pitch, led by Eisner, was polished and classy; but Morton was even more impressed by a beautiful carved-glass ashtray placed on the conference table near Letterman. He could see Dave eyeing it admiringly throughout the meeting, apparently paying closer attention to the ashtray than he was to the guys from Disney. Here was Michael Eisner suggesting how they could all make millions together, and Morton started finding himself mesmerized by an ashtray. Promises were being made, dollar figures were floating up near the ceiling, and Morton was only barely aware of any of it. He was fixated on the ashtray.

  When the meeting broke up and they all left the room, Morton made up an excuse about leaving something inside. He slipped back into the conference room, checked to make sure no one was looking, and dropped the ashtray into his briefcase. He lugged it outside, his bag now a good fifteen pounds heavier, and gave it to Dave later. It added a little more silliness to the adventure. “Here they were talking about paying us millions, and I’m stealing an ashtray,” Morton said.

  Before the summer was over, Ovitz would also lure two other heavy-walleted syndicators to the Letterman stakes. Chris-Craft television, owned by Herbert Siegel and hiring Fred Silverman, Dave’s old NBC boss, as a consultant, jumped in with a proposal. Viacom, which owned cable networks like MTV and the rights to syndicated programs like “The Cosby Show,” asked to be allowed to pitch even though Ovitz’s original deadline had passed. He agreed. David Letterman was not yet out from under his burdensome NBC contract, but Michael Ovitz had filled the tent with potential customers. He knew if ever he could hold an outright auction, the numbers could get awfully interesting.

  If Jay Leno had a best friend in the comedy business, it was probably Jerry Seinfeld. Seinfeld had been an early Jay crony, hanging out at his house around the video game machine after long nights in the clubs. Their styles were similar; Jerry was also an “observational” comic, emphasizing the idiocies of contemporary life. Tartikoff had singled out Seinfeld as a future possibility in late night, and had given him a development deal to hold him for the network. Seinfeld took that deal and developed a quirky, completely untraditional situation comedy called “Seinfeld,” which was about Jerry, his fictional friends, and their self-absorbed lives in Manhattan. The series started slowly, with only a cult following for its decidedly offbeat approach, but by the time Jay got the “Tonight” show, “Seinfeld” was starting to take off. NBC could see the glimmerings of a hit.

  In the summer of 1992, Jerry approached Jay with an idea. One of the running plots on his show concerned the fictional Jerry being approached by NBC to develop a comedy series. Jerry proposed a story in which he would come on the “Tonight” show and impress the NBC bosses. All it would entail was the use of the “Tonight” set for a day or two and a brief appearance from Jay. Jay thought it sounded great—and he said he’d run it by Helen.

  Jay didn’t get the reaction he expected. Helen said no, absolutely not. Jerry Seinfeld was the hottest star NBC had; he was also Jay’s close friend. But Helen still said no. She told Jay that for the first year, they were just going to be on the “Tonight” show, nothing else. Doing something like this would look as if Jay were running all over town to get on other shows, and it would give him an air of desperation, Helen explained.

  To others who wondered why Helen would turn down Seinfeld, she gave different answers. When an associate from New York called, Helen explained what the comic had proposed. It sounded great to this associate, who said so. But Helen said Carson would never do anything like that. “I said to her, ‘What’s the point, Helen? Carson was Carson. This is Jay Leno.’ But it didn’t make any difference. She hated Seinfeld. I never really knew why. But she would say he’s not really a friend of Jay’s.”

  That season NBC had scheduled “Seinfeld” against one of the hottest new comedies on television, ABC’s “Home Improvement,” which starred another comic, Tim Allen. Helen was convinced that Jay appealed to the Tim Allen audience, not the Jerry Seinfeld audience. Helen thought Seinfeld would pull Jay in the wrong direction, and, as she put it, she wasn’t going to turn the “Tonight” show into Jerry Seinfeld’s personal playground.

  Another member of the “Tonight” staff heard about the dispute and asked Helen what the problem was with Jerry’s request. “She said; ‘I don’t want to be associated with a show that’s not hip. Jay is hip. And I don’t want him to be on a not-hip show.’ ” Most of the press had by that time identified “Seinfeld” as probably the hippest show on television in ten years; and advertisers agreed, spending a premium to reach young adult viewers of “Seinfeld” who rarely watched any other shows.

  On the “Tonight” staff, the “Seinfeld” argument presented a fascinating opportunity. They wanted to see if Jay would stand up for his friend. “But he never did that,” the staff member said. “He never stood up to Helen, ever.”

  Jay thought Jerry would understand. So he told him that Helen didn’t like the idea. It didn’t make sense to Jerry, who decided to call Helen himself. It was a rev
ealing phone call for Jerry Seinfeld. When he got off the line from Helen, he immediately called Warren Littlefield.

  “He was in a state of shock,” Littlefield said. Helen had ripped into Seinfeld with such venom, such foul language, that Seinfeld could hardly speak. When he did, he told Littlefield that he had never been treated like that before in his life—and this would be the last time. He told Littlefield he was never going on the “Tonight” show again.

  Littlefield saw Seinfeld twice more in the next few days, and each time, the phone call from Helen was the first thing he talked about. Littlefield decided to call Kushnick. “I have to tell you something,” he said to her. “Jerry Seinfeld may not have a thirty share yet. But we think this guy is a huge, major asset. We care about him tremendously and we can’t have this happen. We cannot have this happen.”

  That was enough to get Seinfeld back on the “Tonight” show’s list of guests. Jerry patched up the situation with Jay. But Helen had ruled; Seinfeld didn’t get to use the “Tonight” show in his series.

  For Littlefield this episode was far worse than what he felt were Helen’s loony efforts to get an ad in USA Today. This fight was over something completely illogical. And though Warren believed she could argue that she was within her rights as producer to say no, it was how she said no that sent her behavior over the line. She berated an NBC star.

  Littlefield found himself sitting at his desk, asking himself how much of this was going on. Here was Jerry Seinfeld, with whom he had a strong relationship, describing this offensive episode. What about all the people who came in and out of the “Tonight” show every day with whom he didn’t have a phone relationship? What if Sylvester Stallone had an experience like that and said he’d never come back to that place again in his life? As Littlefield sat back and considered the entire incident with Seinfeld, he started to ask himself how far this all went—and the uncertainty of the answer made him shudder.