Book Review: "The War For Late Night"

The first book, which resulted in a film
based on the events within.

Around this time last year, Late Night television was the best it had been in awhile, and it was over an unfortunate situation that was playing out in the press.

In 2004, Jay Leno announced he was retiring from "The Tonight Show" and handing the reins to "Late Night" host Conan O'Brien, citing that he didn't want the same acrimony that happened when he had taken the job after Carson's retirement.  In 2009, NBC announces that they are going to retain Leno in a 10pm show, where O'Brien once again will be following Leno. "The Jay Leno Show" turns out to be one humongous flop, and leaves NBC executives scrambling for a solution to their problem.  What ends up happening is O'Brien leaving the network for cable, Leno gets his old job back under a cloud, and NBC executives are left wondering how this could have happened again.

Will there be a movie made from
this book also?

Bill Carter, who wrote about the Leno/Letterman fight in 1992 in The Late Shift, does it again in his latest book, The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy.  Reporting all sides fairly, Carter takes us back into the world of late night television. Although quite a few of these details are familiar to anyone who was following the Second Late Night Wars, there are some surprises.

-- The decision to side with Leno over O'Brien by the NBC executives had to do with money -- primarily, they didn't want to lose Leno because of his strong "play and pay" contract that guaranteed him a big payout if his show was on less than a year.  And unlike most late night hosts, O'Brien's contract didn't stipulate a start time -- his people just assumed that having the words "The Tonight Show" in the contract meant that the show started at 11:35pm.

-- Despite Letterman's monologue one night where he criticized Leno for not going somewhere else after he was fired from "Tonight," Leno DID approach ABC soon after, even hinting to people around him that he was strongly considering any offer they would make.

-- When Leno and his producer was told about the cancellation of the show and the move to 11:30pm for a half hour, he asked if O'Brien was okay with the move.  After finding out that he wasn't told about it yet, he and the producer asked if he didn't want to go along with it if they would be let go from their contract.  The executive said "no."

-- NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker doesn't really come off as a bad guy in all of this -- just as a guy who couldn't adjust to the entertainment side of the business because he ran news for so long.

-- One of the problems with Leno's show had nothing to do with Leno or his production staff, but from meeting the demands of the affiliates, who wanted the strongest comedy bits at the end of the show to lead in to the late night news, leaving the weaker bits for the beginning -- a time when most people would be tuning in to the show and deciding whether they wanted to continue watching it.

-- Leno thinks Conan should have stuck it out and doesn't understand why he didn't. Because Leno IS planning on retiring in the next few years, and we may actually start seeing some guest hosts in the lineup to be tested.

Even if you know most of the details, you'll find this book entertaining.  It's a hard one to put down.  And if you can find a copy, read "The Late Shift," also, to find out how this all began.