NBC's Latest Tonight Show Fiasco

Well, what did you expect from NBC, the network that canceled Star Trek and put Supertrain on the air? Once again they have made a huge mess of The Tonight Show. Would it surprise you to know that there has never been a change of Tonight Show hosts that has gone smoothly? While NBC claims that there has only been five hosts, there has been eight "permanent" hosts of The Tonight Show and several regular guest hosts. The first was Steve Allen, the show's creator. Originally a local show only airing in New York City, it soon got noticed by NBC, which picked it up in 1954. Allen became such a huge star from The Tonight Show that in 1957 NBC decided they wanted him in prime time on Sunday nights up against CBS's Ed Sullivan Show. Allen was still a host for The Tonight Show but now worked three nights a week. Television comedy genius Ernie Kovacs was brought in to host the other two nights with the promise that as they phased Allen out as the host Kovacs would take over the show.

NBC's First Debacle
After three months of co-hosting the show instead of allowing Kovacs to become The Tonight Show's permanent host, NBC decided it wanted to change the show's format into that of a news program that was similar to their Today Show. One of the Today Show's co-hosts Jack Lescoulie was hired as the new host, and the show was renamed Tonight! America After Dark. In those days The Tonight Show was a relatively new concept and not the prestigious show it is today, so neither Kovacs nor Allen was upset about NBC's decision for moving them out as hosts. For Steve Allen it meant a move to prime time, his weekly Steve Allen Show, which competed at 8 p.m. Sundays against Ed Sullivan. There NBC gave Allen three years to beat Sullivan eventually canceling Allen in 1960. Kovacs was out of a job. And while not complaining publicly about NBC's decision not to make him the permanent host as planned, he did publicly complain about Steve Allen accusing him of stealing many of his comedy bits. Tonight! America After Dark ended up losing viewers, and after six months Lescoulie was moved back to Today. A new host was cast, Al Collins, who was given only five weeks before NBC fired him as well.

The Host NBC Drove Off
Deciding to change the format to an interview show, NBC hired comedian Jack Paar as the new host, changing the name back to The Tonight Show. Paar had become so popular that it was eventually renamed The Jack Paar Show. Then on February 10, 1960, Paar had made a joke in the monologue where a woman inquiries about a water closet, which was a very polite term for toilet. NBC censors went overboard and had the monologue edited out and replaced with a news report. On the next night's broadcast Paar announced in his monologue that he was resigning from TheTonight Show and that NBC had let him down. He then walked off the set forcing announcer Hugh Downs to finish the show. For the next few weeks NBC desperately tried to get Paar to return. He finally did a month later, apologizing for his abrupt on-air resignation. No longer enthusiastic about hosting The Tonight Show Paar eventually left a year later claiming it was too much work putting together a 90-minute show seven nights a week. Still not wanting to lose Paar, NBC offered him a weekly prime-time show.

The King of Late Night Television
Looking for a replacement host for Jack Paar, NBC turned to game-show host Johnny Carson. Remaining on the show for an astounding 30 years as the host Carson would become the king of late night television with no competition. Other hosts such as Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin ceded the 11:30 slot to Carson, airing their shows in the afternoon or prime time. In 1982 NBC signed David Letterman to host a new show that followed TheTonight Show called Late Night. Letterman was a regular guest host whenever Carson was on vacation and was one of Carson's favorite comedians. It was understood that Carson wanted Letterman to replace him once he retired and Late Night was to be Letterman's training ground. The only problem was that Carson was not yet ready to retire. With Letterman no longer available to guest host the Tonight Show, other frequent guest hosts were David Brenner, Garry Shandling and Joan Rivers. Of the three, Carson chose Rivers to be the Tonight Show's permanent guest host. After a couple of years the press began to call her the obvious replacement for Carson. In 1986 Joan was given an internal memo by NBC executives, a list of possible replacements for Carson should he retire. Letterman was on the list, as was Brenner and Shandling and a few other celebrities. Joan noticed her name was not on the list. Feeling betrayed and realizing she had no future with NBC Rivers accepted an offer from the new Fox network to host her own show that was to go up against The Tonight Show. When the news broke Carson immediately fired Rivers as the permanent guest host. While her Fox talk show failed to beat The Tonight Show in the ratings, it did eventually indirectly lead to Carson's downfall.

The King Is Dead
If Fox executives had not been inept, they may have beaten Carson. Giving Rivers only a few months, Fox fired her from her own show, renaming it The Late Show and bringing in other celebrities who each took turns guest hosting. Only a few weeks after Joan's show debuted, Fox executives were in secret talks with Howard Stern to take over her show. Soon after Howard announced on his radio show that he would be doing a late-night show for Fox their executives got cold feet and the pilot episodes never aired. Just as the Stern deal was falling apart Fox hired comedian Arsenio Hall as one of The Late Show's many guest hosts. Surprisingly Hall was able to do what Joan and the other guest hosts were not; he was able to generate ratings. Fox neglected to offer Hall a permanent contract and went ahead with The Wilton North Report. After The Wilton North Report failed, Fox tried to get Arsenio back, but by then Hall had already signed a deal with Paramount for a syndicated talk show. The Arsenio Hall Show did not defeat Carson in the ratings, but it took away a third of Carson's viewers. The other networks smelled blood. And believing that they could finally beat Carson, they launched their own late-night talk shows, CBS with The Pat Sajak Show and ABC with Into The Night, originally hosted by Rick Dees. Each show failed, and, much like on Fox, both networks went through a number of temporary celebrity hosts (including Rush Limbaugh) before admitting defeat and canceling their respective talk shows. A year later CBS came up with a new plan, hire one of NBC's Late Night hosts. Letterman and Jay Leno were offered millions to switch networks once their respective contracts expired. In a secret meeting with NBC executives Leno's aggressive manager Helen Kushnick threatened to take Leno over to CBS unless his new contract gave him the Tonight Show once Carson retired. NBC had hoped that Letterman would take over the Tonight Show and Leno Late Night, but agreed to the stipulation in Leno's new contract believing Carson was never going to retire. Behind the scenes some executives felt it was time for Carson to retire and a younger host to take over, and allegedly Kushnick herself waged a campaign to force Carson into retirement. Eventually nudged into retirement Carson left in 1992 leaving NBC with no choice but to give the show to Leno despite a long time promise to Letterman that The Tonight Show was to be his. Letterman then chose not to renew his contract and accepted the CBS offer.

Late Shift: The Sequel
The behind the scenes battle for the Tonight Show thrown was made public in Bill Carter's book The Late Shift, and the entire ugly event became common knowledge. Now needing a new host for Late Night NBC turned to Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels to pick a comedian who would make a great host. Lorne instead chose an unknown, one of his show's writers named Conan O'Brien. Replacing Letterman in 1993 O'Brien received poor ratings, but gradually built an audience. Letterman's move to 11:30 resulted in a three way battle for late night with Leno on the Tonight Show and Arsenio on his syndicated show. Arsenio lost enough ratings for his show to be cancelled, but another contender for the late night crown gradually beat out everyone else, Ted Koppel and his ABC news show Nightline. Nightline originally began as a series of live broadcasts covering the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 which lasted 444 days. By then the show had been on so long that it became permanent. After Carson retired his old viewers who were not interested in the other talk shows gradually began watching Nightline. While not pulling in the ratings that Carson had, Nightline became the ratings winner by default as Leno and Letterman split the talk show viewership. Initially Letterman's ratings nudged ahead of Leno, but after an interview with Hugh Grant following his arrest by the LA vice squad Leno's ratings nudged higher than Letterman's. For the next 14 years Leno remained in second place above Letterman while Koppel remained on top. Nightline continued to dominate the ratings even after Koppel retired. Both ABC and CBS competed against Late Night with Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2003) and The Late Late Show (1995 ) respectively, the later going through several hosts including Tom Snyder, Craig Kilborn and Craig Fergison. Ironically the more competition put up against O'Brien the bigger his ratings grew. This lead to offers to Conan from rival networks. With Jay Leno approaching his 60's which was retirement age NBC decided it was time to nudge him out as host of the Tonight Show so they could keep O'Brien on the network by promising him the hosting slot in 2009. Jimmy Fallon was chosen to take over the Late Night slot bypassing Carson Daly, the former MTV VJ who hosted his own talk show following O'Brien. Leno agreed to retire, but as the date approached and both he and NBC began to have second thoughts about the decision. The solution was to give Leno a nightly prime time talk show. It had been more than three decades since an entertainment interview show was in prime time and Leno would be replacing a time slot normally airing scripted drama shows. The experiment failed and Leno, O'Brien, Fallon and Daly all saw their ratings drop.

NBC now faced a dilemma. Their affiliates demanded they cancel Leno. If NBC canceled Leno then ABC was waiting to hire him immediately replacing Nightline with a new Leno talk show. This would have combined Nightline's ratings with those of the former Tonight Show making Leno the undisputed king of late night, but on a rival network. If NBC fired O'Brien and brought Leno back as the Tonight Show host then not only would they be obligated to pay off O'Brien millions, but he would then be free to go over to ABC, once again bringing over his viewers and combining them with Nightline's ratings. NBC attempted to solve the situation by giving Leno a half hour show at 11:35 and moving the Tonight Show up to 12:07, but O'Brien's contract allowed him to veto this decision, which he did. The other talk show hosts were also effected by this mess. If both Leno and O'Brien agreed to stay on NBC then either Daly or Fallon would be forced out, and possibly onto another rival network. Jimmy Kimmel worried that he would be moved from 12:07 back to 12:30 or later should any new talk show take over Nightline's 11:30 time slot. Since Kimmel had been promised that slot for the longest time he would certainly leave ABC and move to another network, possibly CBS who would either replace Fergison or possibly even decide to push Letterman into retirement for a 11:35 Jimmy Kimmel talk show. And then there is Fox which has been itching for a late night talk show since 1993's with The Chevy Chase Show. Many believe that Fox would be the first to offer either Leno or O'Brien a talk show which would mean that they would have a host with an 11:30 track record. But to do this Fox would have to outbid ABC or CBS should either network be interested in signing either host, and would also need to convince their affiliates to give up their 11:30 to 12:30 time slots. Inevitably NBC decided to pay off O'Brien $40 million and give the Tonight Show back to Leno. As of the end of the 2010 Winter Olympics coverage O'Brien becomes a free agent ready to bring his show to FOX or possibly ABC or CBS displacing another host. And it has yet to be seen if Leno can recover the ratings he lost after leaving the Tonight Show.