by Carter, Bill
When they replied that it seemed likely he would have only one guest, Conan said, “OK. And then I come out and do what?”
The NBC guys didn’t really have any answer to that other than what Conan had already been doing: his own monologue. That this now seemed like a late-night pileup—three shows with monologues lined up end to end—was the implication no one had really addressed.
Finally Conan did have something he really wanted to say, something that had been almost burning a hole in his chest. “What does Jay have on you?” Conan asked, his voice still low, his tone still even. “What does this guy have on you people? What the hell is it about Jay?”
Neither of the NBC executives had an answer. They cast their heads down. Conan thought they were working at looking sympathetic, following some lesson that had been taught at corporate school.
After a pause, Gaspin suggested again that they take some time to figure out what they wanted to do. NBC would be patient. He repeated the network’s desire to keep Conan in the family.
Conan listened for a bit, then stood up. Jeff Ross followed suit. They walked out. The meeting was over; it had lasted fifteen minutes.
The walk back to the Tonight offices required less than two minutes. In that expanse of time both Conan O’Brien and Jeff Ross realized the same thing. NBC wasn’t asking if this move would be OK. They were simply telling them this was going to be the plan. There was no carrot being offered: no contract extension, no salary bump. And of course it had now become clear that they had been called to this hurried meeting because the news was leaking out.
“Fuck,” Ross said. “Well, we know that Jay knows.”
OʹBrien walked into an office in an uproar. A post on the entertainment gossip site TMZ, “NBC Shakeup; Jay Leno Comes Out on Top,” had basically reversed the rumor—now it was Conan who had been canceled. The first few women on the staff he encountered had tears streaming down their cheeks. O’Brien called a rushed staff meeting, gathering everyone in the studio. He grabbed a hand mic and said he just wanted to address the rumors. It was simply not true that the show had been canceled, Conan said. Yes, he explained, “there is a situation with NBC,ʺ but the show was not being threatened. “We’re all going to be OK.ʺ Relief flooded the room, but did not wash away the uncertainty much of the staff was feeling.
Even more than the meeting with Gaspin and Graboff, the TMZ story upset Conan. The day had begun with sharks circling Jay’s rejected show; now they had suddenly turned in Conan’s direction? How had that happened? Who could have fed the Web site this bogus story? Conan didn’t have to guess much to come up with a suspect. He thought about the 1993 episode when Jay hid in a closet to listen in on his fate, a move that Jay had been conspicuously proud of, seeing himself as simply resourceful, but a move that played to some as evidence of the unholy lengths he would go to in order to protect his position. To O’Brien, the timing of the leak to TMZ—coming so soon after a story that Jay had been canceled—screamed of an attempt at diversionary action.
Soon after Conan got back to his office, Ross walked in with more news. He had e-mailed a contact in New York with a simple question: “Is it true Lorne knows?” The answer had come back: Yes.
“We were the last ones to find out about this,” Ross said. “This is not good.”
“Nope,” said O’Brien. “This is not good.”
Ross was just finished comparing how not good this was with “sticking a big stick up your ass” when his assistant told him he had a call waiting from Allison Gollust.
Out on the studio tour with the Comcast team, Zucker had already checked in with Rick Rosen. “Well, what do you think?” Zucker had questioned him.
“It doesn’t sound very good,” Rick replied.
“How did they take it?” Zucker asked.
“Not well.”
“Well, can I go over and speak to them?”
“Hey, Jeff—you run the place,” Rosen replied. “You don’t have to ask me.”
A short time later Gollust put in the call to Ross. She had been dispatched to reach out to assure him that Zucker was indeed in town and ready to come by and talk this through with Ross and Conan. She explained to Ross that they were driving around the lot on golf carts, still stuck with the Comcast guys, and then they had a lunch scheduled with them, but they could stop by as soon as that was over.
After checking with Conan, Jeff said it would be better if Zucker came by after the show. Zucker agreed this made sense. Zucker was mainly concerned with assuring Conan and Ross that he would make every effort to get to them as soon as he could, fully aware that they would have an issue with NBCʹs having talked to Jay first.
That Thursday night, Conan didn’t perform a show so much as simply get through one. He made no mention of the events of that day. He knew he was only half there, the other half still distracted by the anvil hanging over his head.
Jeff Ross left Conan to wind down after he left the stage and headed up to his office, anticipating Zucker’s arrival. In the past, given their closeness, a visit from Zucker would have been an occasion for lightheartedness. This evening Ross found himself more than troubled—he was pissed. The news they had heard that day was bad enough, but that it had been delivered by Jeff Gaspin, a guy they barely knew, instead of Zucker himself, left Ross hugely offended.
When Zucker arrived at around seven, he saw a familiar face waiting at the lobby elevators: Gavin Polone. Conan’s manager had turned up to watch the show and provide support for his client. He shook hands with Zucker and said a simple hello. Zucker went directly up to Ross’s office.
For Jeff Ross, it was instantly, and inevitably, the worst meeting he had ever had with his friend. Ross felt completely uncomfortable, trying to find a balance between the personal affection he felt for Zucker and the professional distance he needed, because Conan held his first and forever loyalty. And already—even with Zucker trying to express NBCʹs continued commitment to Conan—Ross’s gut was filling with bile over how Conan had been treated. The whole affair felt like a public vote of no confidence; they had simply bailed on Conan.
Ross signaled the formality of this occasion by sitting behind his desk rather than out in one of the chairs or on the couch across the room. Zucker settled into a chair facing the desk. After about fifteen minutes Conan, now changed out of his suit into his usual uniform of T-shirt and jeans, ambled in slowly, hands folded, eyes downcast, his face so drawn, his expression so stony blank that Zucker thought he looked catatonic. Conan sat down all the way at the far end of the couch, about as far from the chair Zucker was in as he could get.
Despite their connection stretching back to their Harvard days, the two men were not especially close, though Conan had previously felt nothing but support from Zucker. Now Zucker spoke softly, his own eyes directed toward the carpet. He spoke first about why they had decided to make this move, how they had to do what they believed was in the best interest of NBC. That had to be the primary responsibility. Zucker stressed how vitally important both Conan and Jay were to the network, how this was all about NBC trying to do everything humanly possible to keep both of them.
Conan wanted to make one point first and foremost.
“Here’s the thing I regret the most,” he told Zucker. “I have a great staff. I have a staff that loves this show, a young staff that really believes in it. A lot of people moved out here. They believe in what we’re doing. They see what’s happening. And for an hour today, for no reason, they thought they were canceled. That makes me sick to my stomach.”
Zucker said he regretted that, but his broad thought was that this sort of thing happened in the blogosphere world everyone lived in now.
Conan didn’t say much more, allowing Zucker to lay it all out, repeating the message: NBC did not want to lose him. This wasn’t about driving him away. This was about finding a way to get him to stay.
Conan let Zucker go on, thinking only of one thing. Finally, he said it again: “What does Jay Leno have on you guys? I
just don’t get it.”
To Zucker, the question said more about Conan than it did about NBC. He saw it springing from Conan’s deep dislike of Leno that had simmered just below the surface for years. To Zucker, the answer to that question should have been: no more than what Conan O’Brien had on NBC. In an honest evaluation, as Zucker saw it, both late-night stars would have faced the same judgment: Their shows failed.
But Zucker didn’t say that to Conan. Instead, he went over in greater detail the dilemma NBC faced with the affiliate revolt—and something else. He referred to Jay’s unusual contract and the impact it had on NBC’s position. As both Conan and Ross heard it and interpreted it, Zucker was explaining that he had signed a contract with Leno that he would take back if he could, but that was impossible now, and what was done was done.
Conan, who grew only more silent and closed up as the conversation wore on, did not challenge this notion, or express outrage, though he found himself astonished by Zucker’s almost casual tone. To Conan, it sounded a bit like a passing observation that Zucker was making about the deal that had driven NBC’s decision making, even though to Conan the decision was of such monumental importance that it was a little like someone saying, “I took your son to the mall today and I gave him to a homeless person. If I could I would take it back, but what’s done is done.”
Overall, the talk lasted about a half hour. Zucker concluded by urging Conan to take his time, think it over, go over things with his representatives. Then Conan stood up, tossed off some parting words, and left the room.
Zucker remained with Jeff Ross. Despite the tension, their closeness opened the door to a more honest conversation, at least from Zucker’s perspective. He went back over his assurances that NBC really did want them to stay, to continue producing The Tonight Show. But he pointed to what he said were mistakes the show had been making—the bookings, the nichey comedy. He told Ross that Lorne Michaels was on board with this idea, even though it was hardly going to be advantageous to Jimmy Fallon.
As always Jeff Ross remained calm, stoic to a point that Zucker, as he had so frequently in the past, wondered if he should check for Jeff’s pulse. Ross seemed a bit shell-shocked by the events of the day, but he did not overtly dispute Zucker’s analysis. Instead he sat quietly behind his desk, listening, taking it all in.
Finally Zucker stood to leave. “I’m supposed to fly home tomorrow,” he told Ross. “But if you need me to fly back out here to talk to Conan, to talk to you, whatever you need me to do, you just tell me and I’ll be here in one minute.”
Ross nodded. Zucker started for the door. Ross stopped him. “Hey . . . me and you,” Ross said. “Whatever happens, we’re all right.”
When Marc Graboff woke around six the next morning, Friday, January 8, he immediately checked his BlackBerry, as was his custom. He found a message from Zucker, which he noticed had also been sent to Jeff Gaspin, Rebecca Marks, and Allison Gollust. The message said that Ari Emanuel had called and roused Zucker from his bed at the Four Seasons at five thirty a.m. (the same time he called Zucker on most mornings, though that usually meant eight thirty in the east). In the e-mail, Zucker summarized the conversation: Ari said he hated the decision about Conan, but he got it. He understood NBC’s thinking and why NBC thought it was the right thing to do. They would all talk it over and he was sure Conan was going to do it.
Graboff was not overly surprised by Emanuel’s reaction. He thought of Ari as levelheaded and businesslike, though mainly by reputation. Ari tended to deal exclusively with the top guys like Zucker, not next-level deal makers like Marc.
When Allison Gollust awoke to the same message, she was relieved, thinking this might spell a quick and reasonable end to this little drama, which would calm the roiling press waters. Rebecca Marks, her West Coast counterpart, had a similar reaction.
Jeff Gaspin appreciated this bit of promising news from Zucker even more than the other NBC executives, not only because the revamp had been his idea, but also because he had the press tour appearance facing him in two days. If Conan’s assent could be secured by then, handling questions from the reporters might turn into an unexpected breeze. But he had little time to digest fully Zucker’s message, because Jay checked in first thing that morning, interested in hearing about the discussion between Zucker and O’Brien the previous evening.
Jay asked Gaspin what he thought was going to happen with Conan now. Gaspin told Jay that Conan was truly upset. But he said there were some indications that an agreement might be possible.
“Should I call him?” Jay asked.
Gaspin, recalling the edge Conan had revealed when talking about Leno in their meeting the day before, and how personal it seemed to be getting, said, “You know what—don’t call him.”
On Friday morning Jeff Ross arrived at his office still offended and no warmer to NBCʹs plan. The night before he had engaged in a long conversation with Polone that left him even more concerned about whether the network could even be serious about this proposal.
Polone had cited the current Tonight budget—about $80 million—and told Ross, “Wait a second. You’re telling me they’re going to put on Leno, three shows in what has been a two-hour block, and spend an extra $80 million?” Just from a numbers point of view it seemed to make no sense, except as some bullshit, short-term patch job to get them through this PR nightmare.
Ross’s first call was from Lloyd Braun. “I can’t believe it!” Braun all but shouted. “They did it to you guys! Exactly what you were afraid of out at Riviera. I was sure they could never do this!”
All Ross could say in reply was that he wished to hell he’d been wrong—but he wasn’t.
Conan came in a short time later and sat with Ross. The two men didn’t speak much, but after a while looked at each other and both said a version of the same thing: “Looks like we gotta get outta here. It’s over.” They discussed again the absence of any kind of carrot being offered to make this pill go down any easier.
Ross left a short time later for a lunch with Jeff Gaspin at the Grill, the de rigueur meeting spot for business lunches on the Universal lot, for what amounted to a horse-out-of-the-barn back-channel effort. Gaspin arrived with apologies for how rushed the meeting had been the day before. He conceded that spending fifteen minutes trying to lay out this plan had been inadequate, but explained that the best intentions to present the idea in a formal and complete way had gone awry when the story leaked. He acknowledged that he knew this was a very big deal and needed serious consideration on the Conan side.
Ross tried to convey the impact a move like this had on a talent like Conan—NBC was in effect publicly demoting him—Gaspin attempted to relate it to his own experience, decribing how he had been passed over twice for the top entertainment job at NBC but had hung in there, kept doing his job, waiting for another opportunity.
“I cannot believe you would make that analogy,” Ross said. “That’s not a valid analogy. You didn’t get demoted.” He didn’t add the obvious: You aren’t a television star, either.
And when Gaspin repeated that he didn’t want to make a Sophie’s choice between Jay and Conan, Ross got a bit exasperated. “Stop with the Sophie’s choice,” he said. “You did make a choice.”
But it was always in Ross’s nature to remain levelheaded and reasonable, and Gaspin believed in the same approach. They talked more calmly about whether Conan might come around and accept the idea. Ross said he wasn’t sure; he had never seen him so upset.
As he left, Gaspin saw no reason to panic about where Conan was in this process. He was unhappy, but that didn’t mean he would not ultimately agree to the proposal. Besides, Zucker was already reporting that Conan’s top agent would work to bring him around.
Conan was not surprised that he had not had any word from Leno. That Friday he said to Ross and his head writer, Mike Sweeney, “I’m not gonna hear from that guy. I’ll probably never hear from him again.”
Conan had, however, spoken with Jimmy Fallon. Conan
called him in the midst of the madness on Thursday just to urge him, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but you should be calm.” Jimmy mentioned that Jay had called earlier to take his temperature, which only hardened Conan’s conviction that Leno would not phone him. Jay could commiserate with Jimmy, because Jimmy was new, and it was all “Whatever, gang; peace and love toward everybody.”
Friday was at least a better day in one respect. The show got a handle on how to be funny about all this. “We’ve got a great show for you tonight—I have no idea when it will air, but it’s gonna be a great show,” Conan pronounced at the top. He went on, “NBC has finally come up with an exciting idea—they want me to follow Jay Leno.” And: “When I got in today there was a 1923 Duesenberg parked in my spot.” Getting laughs on the subject that was obsessing him left Conan feeling he had his sea legs under him again.
While he focused on the show, his team—which, besides his agents and manager, now included his transactional lawyer, Leigh Brecheen—invaded the Tonight conference room to work on their options. Gavin Polone took to calling it the war room. From the first moment they all got the news, Polone took the hardest line of anyone working for Conan. He in no sense looked at Jeff Zucker as a friend, as Ross and even Rick Rosen did.
In the war room Conan’s team divided up the press contacts, strategizing how best to get Conan’s message out. Polone was unrelentingly aggressive in pushing to plant attack stories against NBC. He also pronounced from the first meeting that they would win a settlement with the network. “We are going to get a lot here,” Polone told the others. “We are going to get everything we want.”
Polone had spent his entire career haggling over contractual details. He didn’t really care what impact his outspoken style might have on negotiations. It was just something he had to do. This did not come as any secret to the NBC side, which regarded Polone as a bomb thrower from the start. If Zucker’s feisty but warm relationship with Ari Emanuel and the overall intelligence of a classy agent like Rick Rosen encouraged the NBC side to believe they might win Conan over, the presence of Polone struck them as the unstable explosive element in that mix.
