Bill Carter, The War For Late Night
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Late night TV plays out like a Shakespearean drama
Even for casual viewers, it was hard to ignore the spectator sport that was late-night television in 2009-10. After a five-year wait, Conan O’Brien became host of The Tonight Show, Jay Leno made a disastrous move to prime-time, NBC endured a PR nightmare and the media was glued to the tube. With The War for Late Night Bill Carter revisits fertile terrain of The Late Shift (1995), his report of the ’93 re-shuffle at Tonight, in which Leno assumed the chair from Johnny Carson, and David Letterman, considered by many the rightful successor, fled to CBS, igniting a personal and professional rivalry.
Carter, a New York Times media reporter, privies his audience to crucial deal-making and back-channeling among network brass, as well as thorough profiles of major players in late-night television, which has expanded in the years since that great Tonight shakeup to include Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert among ratings-grabbing competition. Carter traces Conan’s ascent from comedy writer to fledgling host threatened by cancellation, to folk hero “Coco.” O’Brien made national headlines In January 2010 when he refused to move Tonight to midnight to accommodate Leno and their troubled network, ultimately losing his job.
Like Shakespearean drama — had the Bard conceived of stupid human tricks and cigar-chomping puppet dogs — there are heroes and villains among agents, producers and network executives. Also, an oracle: Lorne Michaels. Jay is seen as the workaholic, joke-obsessed populist, a longtime ratings king with broad appeal; and Dave, the comic godhead that inspired a generation, including Conan and Jimmy Kimmel. Briskly narrated by Sean Kenin, The War for Late Night is entertaining to the slightest anecdote. Leno’s philosophy is, “Anytime you’re on the air, you’re winning.” But at what cost?
