The War for Late Night

by Carter, Bill

  William Shatner, a Conan regular, came out for act two, to do a dramatic, poetry-style reading of Palin’s words, as he had several times before. Accompanied by a beatnik combo featuring bass and bongos, the actor read a selection from her recent autobiography, Going Rogue—including the line “I looked down to see the moose’s eyeballs lying in his palm, still warm from the critter’s head.”

  Then Palin strode out to wild applause and countered with an excerpt from Shatner’s memoir, Up Till Now, a rich trove of funny lines: “As I finished ‘Mr. Tambourine Man,’ I glanced over at Johnny Carson, who had a look of astonishment on his face, vaguely similar to the look on Spock’s face when his brain was missing.”

  The ratings needle barely twitched.

  Rick Rosen had a more than cordial relationship with Jeff Zucker. He liked the guy, even given Jeff’s hostility to Hollywood, where Rick happily lived and worked. Zucker was bright and winning and could parry and thrust in conversation in ways that Rosen—who engaged in plenty of that as a high-end agent—could not help but enjoy. The two men bumped heads on occasion, but not often. That was more Ari Emanuel’s job (though he liked Zucker, too).

  A few days after the Comcast deal closed, Zucker signed a three-year contract extension with GE—with the promise of its being carried over to Comcast—and Rosen called to congratulate him. He hadn’t spoken to Zucker in several weeks. When he picked up the phone, Zucker said, a little tweak in his voice, “Oh, now you’re calling. I don’t hear from you for weeks. I consider you my friend. I don’t hear from you.”

  “Well, I know what it’s like to go through a merger,” Rick said. “I didn’t want to look like a gossip. So, congratulations.”

  “Oh, sure,” Zucker said. “You’re calling because Conan’s ratings aren’t good. That’s why you didn’t want to call.”

  Rosen didn’t take the bait. “Conan’s ratings are actually good, in the eighteen to thirty-four and eighteen to forty-nine,” he said. When Zucker did not respond, he continued. “Seriously, I was calling because I know what it’s like when people are gossiping about a merger.”

  “Look, we should get together,” Jeff said. “When will you be in town?”

  Rick said he would be in the next week.

  When Rosen dropped by 30 Rock a week later, he sat down with Zucker in his saunalike office, schmoozing for a while about the business until Zucker spontaneously brought up the subject both men knew would be the main topic of discussion. “Ten o’clock’s a problem,” Jeff said. “I have an affiliate problem.”

  This came as no surprise to Rosen, who had seen what Jay’s lead-in numbers were doing to his client on The Tonight Show.

  “Listen,” Zucker continued. “I’m going to be out in LA the second week of January to show the Comcast guys around. I’d like to get together with you and Conan and Jeff and just talk about the show. Because I want the show to be broader. I just want to talk about it.”

  “Fine,” Rosen said, but his antennae were up. “Is there a message here? Is there something I need to be concerned about?”

  “No,” Zucker replied, dismissing the worried look on Rick’s face. “I just want the show to be broader.”

  Later, as he stepped outside into the refreshingly brisk Manhattan air, Rosen took stock of what he’d heard. Zucker had acknowledged his ten p.m. issue and revealed that the affiliates were up in arms. Rosen tried to guess what NBC might be up to: cutting Jay back to maybe two nights a week? That sounded just fine to Rick Rosen. Anything to get Conan some better lead-in numbers.

  NBC had already postponed a long-scheduled semiannual affiliate meeting that had been set for December 10 in New York. Realizing it would be faced with nonstop questions about ten o’clock, and that it still had no answers to offer, the network opted to move the session to the second week of January. Jeff Gaspin took for granted that he would find the solution before that date—he had to. The affiliates would surely be canceling Jay with preemptions by then if NBC continued to dither.

  All the conversations about the coming shake-up continued to be tightly held; Gaspin trembled at the thought of NBCʹs intentions leaking before anything was settled definitively—and before he had stepped up to inform the two big stars who would be affected. So far the secret was holding. Nobody in the press was even speculating that NBC had to make a change soon, which astonished Gaspin.

  He remained open to suggestions and was getting a steady stream of them, most not remotely feasible. Then a New York sales executive contributed an idea—a question, really—and it rang a bell: Could you ever get Jay to do a half hour? Back at 11:35?

  The notion that Gaspin had dismissed a month earlier—also from sales—suddenly seemed more worthy of consideration. In a half-hour show Jay could still deliver a monologue, which was what he most wanted to do, wasn’t it? How many times had he said it himself—“All I want to do is tell jokes at eleven thirty at night”? As for Conan, his mantra over the long months and years when he was the gentleman-in-waiting had been how hosting The Tonight Show was his ultimate dream. Maybe these two defining life choices could actually be put together. Gaspin started to work the idea out in his head: Jay back at 11:35, but only for a half hour, leading into Conan, still the star of The Tonight Show, now a half hour later. Jay would sacrifice a half hour but retain the essential daily ingredient of his life—telling jokes on national television every night. Conan would sacrifice his start time, but he would still have an hour-long show, still called The Tonight Show. Wouldn’t that be the fairest outcome for all concerned?

  The biggest sacrifice that Gaspin could see in this arrangement would actually have to be made by Jimmy Fallon, who would get relegated to a start time after one a.m. All Gaspin had heard around the office was how fresh and funny Fallon was. How much risk could this entail, for a guy just starting to stir up buzz, to make him start so late? But if it had to be, it had to be.

  Gaspin needed ratings estimates and sales projections—fast. When he got them, the results only raised more questions. Two hosts for an hour each graded out better than three squeezed into two and a half hours, but the numbers changed when you factored in the possibility of one of them jumping ship, going somewhere else, and eating into the overall late-night ad revenue. The sales recommendation was to keep all three, take a short-term financial hit, and adjust down the line.

  Gaspin kept coming back to the fairness issue. While this proposal would displace Conan by thirty minutes, he would still be on NBC in late night. He had had only seven months in which to adjust to the big show, as Gaspin analyzed it. How fair would it be to cancel his show, send him packing, and just put Jay back there? Not fair at all. And did Jay get a fair shake with only four months on at ten, even though he’d been promised—guaranteed—two years?

  Gaspin began to lay out the scenario in more detail. Initially NBC would have to shell out more money—Jay’s salary and program budget, taken together with Conan’s and Fallon’s, would drive late night into the red. But they could expect significant upside in the ten o’clock hour. Even the patchwork lineup Gaspin planned to scratch together figured to top Leno’s numbers just about every night.

  The whole reconfiguration could be in place to kick off by March, immediately after the two weeks of wall-to-wall Olympics coverage on NBC—a conveniently timed restart. And surely the revamped lineup would hold firm for the rest of the season, at which point they could figure out something else. Of course, the unspoken but compelling grace note at the center of this improvisation was that it accomplished NBCʹs consummate and fixed goal: holding on to both its late-night stars. This solution would again manage to avoid a repeat of the calamity of 1993.

  Gaspin examined it carefully, top to bottom, side to side. He liked it. He had two loyal, hardworking stars in Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien, backed by two classy, dedicated executive producers in Debbie Vickers and Jeff Ross. Not to mention big staffs on both shows. Under this configuration, the staffs stayed in place, retained their jobs, paid their mortg
ages, kept their kids in the same schools.

  The week before Christmas Gaspin called Zucker and laid out his plan in detail. He needed approval, but Gaspin had no qualms about claiming paternity. He had clicked the pieces into place like an elaborately designed Lego construction; he intended to see the plan through by personally informing all the players.

  “We can do it now or we can wait and let everybody think about it over the holidays,” Gaspin said to Zucker, who gave his nod of approval to the overall restructuring. The advantage of going out with it immediately was that all the parties involved could mull it over during the extended two-week shutdown Hollywood enjoyed every December. Zucker, happy to have his new entertainment boss take the lead, said he would also leave the decision of pre- or post-holidays in Gaspin’s hands.

  Gaspin examined the calendar. Christmas was closing in; people were already looking forward to their breaks. There was that to consider. Gaspin had second thoughts; maybe it was better if they dealt with it all in the new year.

  Let’s not ruin anybody’s holiday season.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE LATE UNPLEASANTNESS

  For the first weekend of 2010, the weather at the classic Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, was beyond glorious—mid-seventies, sunny, ideal for an unhurried round of golf just before the Hollywood grind, on hold for two holiday weeks, resumed again on Monday morning.

  Jeff Ross had taken up the game pretty late in life, in his forties, using the down time from his duties running Late Night to throw himself headlong into lessons, including weeks at intensive golf camps in Florida. By now he had become accomplished enough to score in the mid-eighties on Riviera’s tough layout. He had also formed a number of strong golf friendships: in his New York days with Jeff Zucker, among others, and, once he moved to LA and was admitted as a member at Riviera, with Rick Rosen and Lloyd Braun.

  That Sunday morning Ross teed it up with Braun, one of the more active television executives of the previous decade. Braun, trained as an entertainment lawyer, had worked as a talent manager for the big Brillstein-Grey firm, later joining Disney as head of its television production studio Buena Vista, and then as president of entertainment for Disney’s network, ABC. After a wild ride there, Braun had moved on to work a brief stint at Yahoo! before finally starting up his own production company in partnership with Gail Berman, the well-regarded onetime president of entertainment for Fox. Now Berman-Braun had what was known as a first-look deal with NBC.

  Braun, lean and athletic, played golf often and well. He had a knack for turning up in the middle of late-night action, having pursued David Letterman for ABC in 2002 and then creating the new ABC entry for Jimmy Kimmel. Naturally enough, as he walked the Riviera course that January morning with Jeff Ross, Lloyd had NBCʹs late-night situation on his mind. When they reached the seventeenth green, Braun finally asked Ross about the latest concerning Conan and the Jay Leno experiment at ten.

  Ross told him it was becoming overwhelmingly obvious that Leno was in big trouble.

  “I know,” Braun said. “They’ve got to do something about it.”

  Ross nodded in agreement, but his generally dour demeanor looked even gloomier than usual. “I sure hope it doesn’t affect us,” he said.

  Lloyd put up a hand to stop that line of thinking. “You guys have nothing to worry about,” Braun pronounced. “That would be the dumbest thing ever. It would be the worst PR move ever. It’s not planning for the future.”

  “I know,” Ross said, not very convincingly. “They made a commitment to us.”

  “If they do something, they’ve got to get rid of Leno,” Braun insisted, trying to reassure his friend.

  “Yeah, but it would be a fortune to pay him off,” Ross continued, not at all reassured.

  Braun, as was his wont, worked himself up to a level of passionate indignation. “To do something with you guys would be the most ridiculous move they could make!” Lloyd declared. “They can’t do it. Listen to me. Don’t even think about it. It is never . . . gonna . . . happen!”

  By the time he arrived at his office at Universal early the next morning, Monday, January 4, Jeff Gaspin had already made up his mind about what was going to happen. Quietly, over the holidays, Gaspin had on his own sketched out his new ten p.m. schedule and was satisfied that the results would represent an immediate and significant improvement over Jay Leno’s faltering performance. Gaspin knew that Jeff Zucker had a plan to fly in to LA later that week with the two top dogs from Comcast, Brian Roberts and Steve Burke, intending to show them around the West Coast entertainment operation. The time to act was now. Gaspin put in a call to Zucker first thing that morning. “I don’t want to wait until the end of the week,” Gaspin told him. “I want to start the ball rolling. I want to go talk to Jay. Give Jay a week. Then I’ll go talk to Conan.”

  In thinking through how he would present the change to the two stars, Gaspin had factored in his expectation of how each side would handle the news. It made sense for all sorts of reasons to tell Jay Leno and Debbie Vickers first, but especially because Gaspin believed he could trust them—they would not leak the plan. It would not be in their interest anyway, given that Jay’s ten p.m. show was being canceled. They also seemed to have levelheaded representation who would not want to squeal to the press the first chance they got about NBC’s unfairness or lack of commitment. That would not be the case with Conan’s team, Gaspin feared. He took for granted that any indication he gave them of his intentions would be planted somewhere online the same day. Beyond that, Gaspin presumed that had he made the seemingly sensible move to start up a back-channel connection with Ari Emanuel or Rick Rosen (whom Gaspin liked) or Gavin Polone (whom he didn’t know at all), they would have lost no time in shopping Conan to a competitor, looking to spring him from NBC.

  Besides all that, Gaspin had to have evidence that Jay would go for this fallback position—a return to 11:35 in a half-hour format—before rocking Conan’s world with the news that he was being herded off to 12:05. If Jay said no way, the whole plan would implode. So Gaspin’s first thought was: Get Jay squared away early in the week; go talk to Conan on Friday; let him have the weekend to process it.

  Then he had a second thought: The press tour sessions with NBC were set for Sunday. This would be Gaspin’s first time sitting in front of a room of journalists answering questions as the leader of NBC Entertainment. He wanted to make the best possible impression. If Conan learned his fate on Friday, somebody on his team—probably Polone—would spin it out in the press to try to gain leverage. Then the entire Sunday news conference would be about the ten p.m. and late-night plan instead of the wider NBC story.

  Gaspin made up his mind to hold off on telling Conan until the following Monday. If all went well, everything with Jay would be settled by then, and Conan’s options would be clear—and stark.

  Though on a much smaller scale than in royal France, Jeff Zucker had his own Cardinal Richelieu, a behind-the-scenes éminence grise, a confidant he trusted completely, even with a closely held secret like the news of the coming changes at ten and in late night. Those closest to Zucker knew well that Dick Ebersol had filled the role of minister without formal portfolio throughout Jeff’s career, but it was surprising that some inside NBC, including members of Conan OʹBrienʹs camp, were not fully aware of the significance of Ebersol’s unofficial but powerful position as the most influential adviser to the throne.

  As 2010 rolled in that January, Dick Ebersol was deep into his preparations for the Vancouver Olympics, but he always had time to kick around other issues pressing NBC’s tottering empire. Jeff Zucker opened up to him after he had signed off on Gaspin’s plan of action—and Ebersol immediately tried to talk him out of it.

  “It’s not fair to Jay,” Dick argued, citing specifically the shift to a half hour, a format Leno had never worked in before in his life. “What’s the show going to be?”

  Zucker outlined the plan—a monologue, a second comedy piece,
and the occasional guest. It didn’t sound promising at all to Ebersol. He made an alternate suggestion: Go all the way back in the time machine. Put Jay back at 11:35 for an hour and Conan at 12:35. It would screw Jimmy Fallon in the short run, which was a shame, because Ebersol was already highly impressed with him. They would have to figure out something else good for Fallon while keeping him in line for a future in late night. Ebersol justified the move by pointing to the numbers Conan had put up in his seven months—a performance, Dick stressed, that merited demotion if any performance ever had. “Half of the audience was gone in nine weeks,” Ebersol said. “That’s a joke. That isn’t going to change.”

  Zucker defended the plan, arguing that Gaspin deserved a chance to make it work. Ebersol kept to himself the decision he would have made had he been in charge: cut Conan out of the package altogether and line up Leno and Fallon. But Dick recognized how nuclear a move like that would be. Conan didn’t seem to have a clue his show was in trouble, as Ebersol read the situation. Even Gaspin’s measured play was going to hit him like a sledgehammer to the temple and enrage him. To lose the whole show, to be canceled outright after seven months, would be like a public execution, Ebersol thought.

  Still, he disliked the half-hour move for Jay, which smacked to him of punishment. Ebersol believed that Leno should be cut a break for having taken on the doomed ten p.m. assignment. Jay at least could see the bullet coming. Ebersol found himself astonished that Conan, at forty-six, could be, as Dick judged it, so naive about the business.

  One more issue needed clarification before Gaspin pushed the button on the combustible mix he had ready for the NBC blender. Gaspin had to be certain there was no contractual prohibition that might prevent him from executing his vision for a revamped ten p.m. hour and the overcrowded elevator that he was making of the network’s late-night lineup.