The Late Shift

by Carter, Bill

  Morton and Lassally knew that NBC was blaming them for the failure of the effort to win back Letterman, but they scoffed at the idea that it was self-aggrandizement that motivated them to steer Dave to CBS. Lassally had helped instigate the campaign inside NBC to match the CBS offer. Nothing would have satisfied him more personally than to march back into the offices in Burbank in triumph with Dave at his side. Lassally and his wife longed to move back to their Los Angeles home. All that was possible only with an NBC deal. As for Morton, he said he had a dream as well, a producer’s dream: to run the “Tonight” show. As a single guy he already felt he had more money than he would ever need. His motivation, he said, was what would be best for David Letterman.

  Morton and Lassally also became the targets when NBC needed to point a finger at someone for leaking the story of its last-minute offer to Letterman. Early that week, as questions from the press started coming in about what had happened over the weekend between NBC and CAA, John Agoglia and the other NBC executives took a vehement position: They said they had made no offer to David Letterman that would give him the 11:30 time period. No offer, no “shading” of an offer, they said. They had never in any discussion offered 11:30 to Letterman, they said. Never had they put a financial package together for him; never at any time in the course of any NBC action did they make an offer to David Letterman for the “Tonight” show.

  Agoglia and others at NBC raised questions about who was behind the leak that NBC had offered 11:30 to Letterman. One NBC executive made reference to “a number of people around Letterman who ingratiate themselves to him and tell him who his enemies are.” These people were floating the story of an offer to Dave, the NBC side suggested, because they didn’t want it to look as if Dave had been rejected again.

  Lassally and Morton, however, had been warned by CAA to keep away from the press with this story. Neither producer initiated any calls to reporters about the offer to Letterman and the weekend debate over whether to accept it.

  Those who had been personally involved in the tense negotiations the weekend before at the CAA offices were not surprised to read NBC’s adamant denials. The CAA negotiators understood that NBC was in an awkward position. The press coverage in repeated stories over several weeks, most suggesting that the network was considering removing Jay Leno and installing David Letterman, had already done untold damage to Jay’s image. With the Letterman dalliance finally finished, NBC was about to tell the world that Jay Leno was their late-night champion and always had been. The PR campaign to bolster Jay was about to begin. Stories about the closeness of the last-minute encounter with Letterman would only undermine that campaign. The CAA side understood all that. Still, one member of the Letterman team said bluntly of the NBC denials: John Agoglia did not tell the whole story.

  Agoglia’s position in the aftermath of the negotiations was that he was in a room with David Letterman’s representatives, and so scenarios were discussed that he believed those people wanted to hear; he explored every avenue to keep Letterman, he said, with all kinds of different configurations. But none would have dug the ground out from under Jay Leno, he noted. When put on the spot as to whether any NBC proposal in all these configurations would have given Letterman a shot at the “Tonight” show, Agoglia said: “Maybe if we had canceled Jay, David would get a shot at it.”

  But the CAA representatives said that they would never have negotiated a deal for Letterman that didn’t completely guarantee him the show—and that’s what was on the table in the offer John Agoglia presented to them.

  By the time these stories were breaking, Agoglia and Littlefield had problems beyond dealing with all the recriminations about the offer the network made to keep Letterman. That Monday, as soon as they knew the 12:30 slot was definitely going to be available, NBC made formal its offer to Dana Carvey to take over “Late Night.” As much as they had talked about Carvey to Bob Wright as their ace host in the hole, they had not been able to offer him the show formally because of the proposal still on the table at CAA to keep Letterman there until as late as May 1994.

  The Carvey alternative had been consistently held out to Wright as the West Coast’s answer to a 12:30 vacancy. This continued even though Carvey’s manager, Brad Grey, had fired a warning shot across NBC’s bow the previous December when he told the New York Times that the network did not have the long-term contract with Carvey that it had announced it had. When rumors surfaced at the same time that Carvey might also be negotiating with CBS for its own 12:30 slot following the new Letterman show, NBC took it as Grey pulling a negotiating stunt.

  Every time Carvey’s name had been mentioned as NBC’s savior at 12:30, network executives close to Carvey said the comedian would never do a show behind Leno. One member of “SNL” explained the confusion by saying, “What the West Coast guys don’t realize is that Dana is a comedian. He wants to see people smile. So he tells them something to make them smile, and then when they’re gone he says: ‘Get me out of this.’”

  By midday Monday, January 11, NBC had formalized its offer to Dana Carvey in a call to Brad Grey: Dana could have the 12:30 show starting sometime that summer after Letterman’s exit on June 25. It was certainly an offer welcomed by Grey, an ambitious, hotshot young talent manager. Grey had built an impressive stable of comedy stars with Bernie Brillstein at the agency that was now named Brillstein/Grey. The list included Garry Shandling, Mike Meyers, Dennis Miller, and George Wendt. In a twist destined to have unpleasant repercussions for NBC, Grey also represented Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” That meant Grey was well aware that in Michaels’s last contract Lorne had won a clause that gave him “first look” rights to create a show for the 12:30 time period if Letterman ever left it vacant. Grey felt Letterman’s move to CBS—opening both the 12:30 spot on NBC and creating the need for a show to come at 12:30 on CBS—would throw the late-night market into flux. And he knew Brillstein/Grey was especially well positioned to ride in with the new tide.

  Grey had told the NBC executives all along that the late-night hosting job was something Dana Carvey would consider when it was offered to him. He never doused their hopes, nor built them up. But the NBC West Coast executives, especially Littlefield, who felt he had a close relationship with Carvey, believed they were getting strong indications of interest from Dana.

  They were wrong. Almost as soon as the offer was formally delivered to Grey, the answer came back. Carvey said no. Grey found NBC’s immediate expressions of dismay a little out of place. After all, he told them, Dana at no time said he would for sure take the job if it were offered to him. If NBC was getting that message, it was the wrong message, Grey said. When NBC howled something about being taken advantage of, Grey was nonplussed. How could he and Dana Carvey take advantage of the General Electric Company, for God’s sake?

  Certainly Warren Littlefield believed he had gotten assurances that Dana could be counted on. Suddenly, the after-Letterman option that he and John Agoglia thought was solid had evaporated into mist. NBC had just gone through the catastrophe of losing the second-biggest star in the history of late-night television, and now the network had nothing, absolutely nothing, in hand to replace him. It was Bob Wright’s worst night-mare coming true. When he heard the news about Carvey, a picture formed in Wright’s imagination: David Letterman’s boat sailing over to CBS and Dana Carvey sailing out into the Pacific.

  Among the executives inside NBC who had aggressively supported Leno in the face-off against the Letterman backers, questions were now raised, especially about John Agoglia and his negotiating tactics. “Knowing all the fragility of the late-night situation,” one senior executive said, “and then not to have locked up Dana, how could that happen? Not just this year. I mean a year and a half ago he should have locked him up.”

  One producer who frequently negotiated with Agoglia said he wasn’t surprised the Carvey deal was never really a deal, because Agoglia often played it so cute in negotiations, trying to give the netwo
rk the edge, always keeping certain options open, making sure there was an out. A longtime, close NBC associate said, “Agoglia has a lot of bluster and then when you ask to see the bill of sale, it’s questionable.”

  With Carvey taking a pass, Littlefield had no name to announce as the replacement for Letterman at the Leno press conference, which was scheduled to take place just three days later. It was going to be: Jay didn’t get fired, and no, we have no idea what we’re going to do at 12:30. Sue Binford, the head of public relations for NBC on the West Coast, knew that had the makings of yet another debacle for NBC in the press. “You cannot go out there Thursday and say Jay’s here, David’s gone, and we’ll figure the rest out later,” Binford told Littlefield. “It would be okay if you just had a creative name to throw out there. You’ve got to figure out how to get Lorne.”

  Lorne Michaels had such a prestigious name in late night that saying he would be the executive producer of a new late-night entry might be enough to bring off the notion that all was well at NBC. There was just one problem with the Lorne option: Agoglia hadn’t locked him up either. Michaels’s first-look deal on a new late-night show left it to his discretion to add another show; he could say no, I’d rather not. No one at NBC had any idea whether Michaels would go for this idea—or how much it was going to cost the network to twist his arm.

  “It was just amazing,” one senior NBC executive said. “To have made that many mistakes in a row.”

  Tuesday night, Bob Wright, now sucked back into the pressurized late-night spin cycle, called Michaels himself. Bob and Lorne, though seemingly an odd match on the surface—the hip comedy producer and the buttoned-down GE corporate man—really had found much in common. They were about the same age, and as Lorne fell into a more domestically oriented life with his wife, Alice, the two men had found they had more similar lifestyles and interests. Michaels had come to like Wright as a human being and to respect some of his programming instincts. In fact, he’d wished Bob had followed his instincts more closely and closed the deal for Letterman.

  When Wright called that Tuesday night, Lorne was sick with a knockout cold. He was hard-pressed to deal with Wright’s shock over Carvey’s rejection of the NBC offer. “How could this happen?” Wright asked Michaels. But if he had asked Lorne earlier, he would have heard how unlikely it ever was that Dana would take the spot after Leno. Now here was Wright asking Michaels to step in and save the situation for NBC by allowing his name to be tossed out as the genius who would create anticipation instead of chaos in the transition from Letterman to whomever on “Late Night.”

  Michaels was certainly aware that he had the first-look option on 12:30. With the Letterman issue aflame inside the NBC offices for months, he could hardly have failed to consider what it might mean for him if Dave went out the door. But Michaels had asked for that clause in his last contract only because he wanted to protect the overall late-night franchise, which he felt was the key to ensuring that “Saturday Night Live” would continue to thrive at NBC. As far as genuine ideas for the show, Michaels had none at that moment. He told Wright he would have to think about whether he really wanted any announcement that he was to be involved in starting up another late-night show.

  By Thursday morning the news had been confirmed everywhere. Jay Leno was keeping the “Tonight” show; David Letterman would be his competitor on CBS starting in August. The media had been invited to the dueling press conferences, with NBC’s starting first in the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica, followed immediately by CBS’s at their Black Rock headquarters building on West 52d Street in Manhattan.

  That morning NBC still had no answer from Lorne Michaels. The network’s executives had been practically on their knees the night before, pleading with Michaels over the phone to allow Warren Littlefield just to say his name in connection with a 12:30 show at the press conference the next day. With only about three and a half hours to spare, Michaels relented. He still had no signed deal with NBC to be executive producer of a new 12:30 show, but for Bob Wright’s sake, he was willing to allow his name to be uttered—only in a specific context. Lorne dictated the exact language that Warren had to use at the press conference. Littlefield could say that Michaels, the Emmy Award-winning executive producer and creator of “Saturday Night Live,” would be “overseeing the development and production of a new comedy hour that will be following the ‘Tonight’ show with Jay Leno.”

  With an enormous gasp of relief, NBC’s West Coast executives prepared for their grand introduction of Jay Leno as the once and future host of the “Tonight” show.

  Lee Gabler had flown to New York to represent CAA at the Letterman press conference scheduled for that evening after the taping of “Late Night.” Gabler found Letterman a bit more agitated—and in need of handholding—than usual.

  The first Letterman had heard of a press conference was that day when he got to NBC to start work on his show. He thought CBS would issue a press release and everyone would leave him alone. Then he heard that Ovitz had forced Stringer to make it a press conference. It wasn’t simply that Letterman was reluctant to answer questions about his decision; it was that he was just plain scared. Dave didn’t feel as though he had won anything. He knew NBC was having its own press conference right before his, and that only added to the anxiety. The burden would be on him to go over to CBS and tell everybody how happy and delighted he was to be there. Letterman really didn’t want to do anything to upset anyone at CBS, because they had showed him so much good faith and had made such a generous offer. But he was still a complete wreck inside. He had just seen the chance at the “Tonight” show go away and he was still mourning the loss. All he really wanted to do after the show was go home and shut the door behind him. He didn’t want anything to do with a press conference.

  Both press conferences were to be covered that day as though news of enormous national import was taking place: CNN sent crews to cover the events live. Other camera crews from every local television station in New York and L.A., and from “Entertainment Tonight” and other nationally syndicated news magazine shows, all converged on both sites.

  At the Loews Hotel, the large conference room was packed with more than 200 members of the press at about 4:00 P.M. Pacific time when Susan Binford stepped to the stage NBC had set up. She told the crowd that NBC was committed to ending its press conference by 5:05 P.M., when the Letterman conference would be piped in to the reporters on the West Coast. The NBC press conference had been a scheduled event on NBC’s portion of the January press tour for television reporters. It was not originally designed to cover late night but rather to give Warren Littlefield a chance to address any questions about prime time or anything else involving NBC’s entertainment division. NBC had already planned on a gimmick to give Littlefield a boost as he met the press: Binford introduced the cast of NBC’s hottest comedy series, “Seinfeld,” to put the group in a positive mood for Littlefield.

  Jerry Seinfeld and his cast members made cracks about being the only thing working on NBC—and that they were prepared to take over every division of the network themselves. Then Seinfeld, who joked that he would be hosting every show in late night, introduced Littlefield as “the man we’re all behind.”

  Warren wasted no time. He said everyone was there to learn what was going to happen in late night, and lifting his voice to an excited pitch, he said, “The answer is that the host of the ‘Tonight’ show will continue to be: Mr. Jay Leno!”

  Amid applause from the NBC staff members all around the room, Jay roared into the press conference riding a huge, red Harley-Davidson. He was beaming a broad smile, his aquamarine eyes dancing. When he got to the stage, he shook Warren’s hand and they shared a laugh. They looked like two guys who had shared a foxhole, weathered a bombardment, and now felt the light-headed joy of coming through unscathed. When he got the mike, Jay hit the crowd with his tested, bulletproof opening line: “Welcome to NBC: It stands for Never Believe your Contract.” After that surefire laugh, Jay took note of the live
coverage on CNN and asked, “You know what this means? This means Saddam Hussein now has an opinion on this. He’s in a bunker going, ‘I like Dave, but yet the other guy, I don’t know. It’s very confusing.’”

  Jay continued to have fun at his own and NBC’s expense. “You know, Bill Clinton said we will be living in an age of lowered expectations. You people are all here. I have the job! What we’re celebrating here is: I haven’t been fired! Okay? Understand that? I already have the job. I’m not being fired! Hey, Leno, let’s get him down here! Hey, he didn’t get fired! Boy, that’s great! Good for you!”

  In a break from the laughs, Littlefield added that NBC had tried hard to keep both late-night stars, but that in the end David Letterman was only interested in being on at 11:30. “And quite frankly,” he said, “we have a terrific host in Jay Leno on the ‘Tonight’ show.”

  Jay thanked Warren and said, “Again these words are all new to me, if I look a little surprised. It’s the first time I’ve heard a lot of this, so please indulge me briefly if you will.”

  Then Warren said it was important to thank David for his eleven years at NBC and to wish him well. “But, you know, in the eight months that Jay Leno has been occupying his new chair, what he has shown to all of us at NBC is just how terrific he is hosting the ‘Tonight’ show. And we can all see why he will be doing that for a long, long time to come.”

  “Pending current renegotiations,” Leno joked.

  After the carefully worded but enthusiastic announcement that Lorne Michaels had agreed to develop the show to follow Jay, Littlefield opened the floor to questions. But before that began Jay said a few kind words about Dave himself, and how he wouldn’t have the job at all except for Dave and the exposure he have given Jay on “Late Night.” Jay said he and Dave had never had any ego problems and that when he took over the “Tonight” show, Dave was extremely gracious, bringing Jay onto the show so they could shake hands and Dave could congratulate him on the air. “Throughout these whole negotiations this has not been a case of somebody trying to screw somebody else,” Jay said. “It’s a matter of, hey, it’s an important job and everybody would like to have it. I’m glad I got it.”