Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
I really like Leno. Only a few things I like about Letterman, but Leno rules!
LOS ANGELES — The Jay Leno chase is on.
Four years ago, NBC made the comedian the lame-duck host of “The Tonight Show,” announcing with fanfare that he would be succeeded by Conan O’Brien in 2009.
Today, Mr. Leno is still the champion of late-night ratings, with no apparent desire to do anything else but continue on top. “What I do,” he has said on several occasions to colleagues, “is tell jokes at 11:30 at night.”
And so, nearly two years before he can officially be courted, suitors including two networks, ABC and Fox, and at least one television studio, Sony Pictures Television, are beginning to circle, doing everything they legally can to make sure Mr. Leno knows that they will make it possible for him to continue doing just that.
Senior executives at ABC and Fox said that their networks had discreetly gotten the message to Mr. Leno that they were waiting eagerly for the time when they would be able to make official overtures. NBC Universal, meanwhile, has repeatedly expressed its intention to retain Mr. Leno with a still-undisclosed plan for a new program.
Sony Pictures Television has made an approach through intermediaries to let Mr. Leno and his representatives know that as soon as he is allowed to discuss his next move, the studio will make him a rich offer for a syndicated late-night show that would make him the highest-paid host in late-night television, put his name on a new theater on the Sony lot and give him a financial interest in Sony music artists who appear on his show.
Executives who have heard the details of the plan said the move was Sony’s effort to stake a flag in the ground, knowing how intense the pursuit of Mr. Leno was likely to be in coming months.
In a series of interviews here, executives on several sides of the courtship of Mr. Leno outlined possible plans for his future. They all asked to speak anonymously because they are not allowed to negotiate with Mr. Leno until November 2009, when a negotiating window will open up in Mr. Leno’s deal with NBC.
Executives who know the details of his contract said Mr. Leno would remain attached to NBC through the end of 2009 even though he probably would not be on the air for the last six months of the contract. Mr. Leno’s contract is estimated to pay him about $25 million a year — which is less than David Letterman’s, which pays him more than $30 million. “Jay will of course honor his contract obligations to NBC,” said Kenneth Ziffren, Mr. Leno’s lawyer. (Mr. Leno works without a formal deal with an agent or manager.) “Jay isn’t talking to anyone about anything and won’t be until it’s contractually proper,” Mr. Ziffren said.
In 2004, when they established a plan for the network’s late-night future, NBC executives most likely did not expect to find themselves facing the prospect of losing another incumbent late-night star to a competitor. That happened in the early 1990s when Mr. Letterman defected to CBS after Mr. Leno won the battle to succeed Johnny Carson.
Instead, the announcement of the five-year transition from Mr. Leno to Mr. O’Brien in 2009 cut off efforts by other networks to steal away Mr. O’Brien, whose “Late Night” appears on NBC after “Tonight,” and secured five more years with both Mr. Leno and Mr. O’Brien in the NBC fold.
But if the expectations at NBC had been that Mr. Leno, as he approached 60, would be showing signs of slackening in popularity, he has defied them, winning in the ratings virtually every night, even during the recent three-month writers’ strike. Mr. Leno’s ratings dominance even without writers was noted throughout the television business, and only heightened the already intense curiosity surrounding his next move.
Mr. Letterman is signed at CBS through 2010.
The terms of Mr. Leno’s contract, as well as the tentative plan for how and when Mr. O’Brien will step in to replace him on “Tonight,” have set up a sequence of events that will have both comedians off the air in 2009 for extended periods of time.
Executives close to the planning said the expectation now was that Mr. O’Brien would leave “Late Night” next January, allowing him five months to reshape his show for the transition from New York to Los Angeles and the earlier time period of “Tonight.”
NBC has begun construction on a new studio for “Tonight,” as well as offices for Mr. O’Brien’s staff, on its Universal lot here. Several executives predicted that NBC would use the months Mr. O’Brien will be off the air to introduce his successor, widely expected to be Jimmy Fallon, the former “Saturday Night Live” cast member. Mr. Fallon is the favorite of Lorne Michaels, the “Saturday Night Live” producer who had success in choosing the unknown Mr. O’Brien in 1993 to succeed Mr. Letterman and who will again be involved in the selection of the new host of “Late Night.” Moving into the show next February would mean Mr. Fallon could benefit from the lead-ins from Mr. Leno’s last months on “Tonight.”
But the terms of NBC’s contract also mean Mr. Leno could not return to the air anywhere else until January 2010. That would give Mr. O’Brien an extended period on “Tonight” without facing competition from Mr. Leno.
“The Tonight Show” earns an estimated $100 million a year. Mr. Leno, who turns 58 in April, has kept his intentions for his post-“Tonight” career to himself, declining any comment about what he might choose to do after his contract expires. His friends and associates have speculated that he could be looking for some way to make NBC regret asking him to make way for Mr. O’Brien — though Mr. Leno publicly has been nothing but supportive of Mr. O’Brien.
As a guest last month on another late-night show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on ABC, Mr. Leno declared his intention to go through with the move.
That comment countered what had become rampant speculation that NBC might reconsider at the last minute and ask Mr. Leno to stay on at “Tonight.” But NBC executives, including the chief executive of NBC Universal, Jeff Zucker, have reaffirmed their commitment to Mr. O’Brien. And if they did change their minds, they would owe Mr. O’Brien a penalty payment: an estimated $45 million.
One of Mr. Leno’s potential suitors said, “I expect money will play a secondary role to revenge and Jay will look to prove to everybody that NBC was wrong.”
Several of those trying to guess Mr. Leno’s next move suggested that motivation would be one of many reasons why ABC enjoys the best chance to land him. That network could abandon its “Nightline” news program at 11:35 p.m. to give Mr. Leno a show that could go directly against “Tonight.” Fox, in contrast, would offer him an 11 p.m. slot.
Executives at Fox, though, say that network’s pitch to Mr. Leno will use its recent prime-time dominance as a selling point. Executives at ABC, meanwhile, say the network will stress its lineup of prime-time hits as well as the lead-in power of the late local news on its stations.
“Another performer would find getting a jump at 11 an advantage,” one Fox executive said. “But probably not Jay, who will want to be head to head against NBC.”
The president of Sony Television, Steve Mosko, declined to comment. But executives who have heard some of the details of Sony’s plans said the studio intended to throw a kitchen sink of proposals at Mr. Leno.
“When he walks on the lot, there’ll be a Yellow Brick Road to the Jay Leno Theater, which will sit at the centerpiece of the Sony lot,” said an executive who has seen the plans.
Sony is expected to promise Mr. Leno $40 million a year or more — the top salary in late night. The studio would also give him ownership, not just of his own show, but also of a second hourlong late-night show designed to follow Mr. Leno’s — a construction that Mr. Letterman already enjoys at CBS, with his “Late Show” and “The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson.” (Mr. Leno does not own “Tonight.”)
The terms are not likely to drive off the competition for Mr. Leno’s services. Referring to the executives with ultimate control over ABC and Fox, one NBC executive said, “Bob Iger and Peter Chernin are camped out at Leno’s garage.”
No matter how elaborate their charm offensive may be, Mr. Leno cannot sign with anyone else until very late next year, and cannot be on the air anywhere until January 2010. That is not a lot of time to prepare a new show.
But perhaps not for Mr. Leno. “He could hire an executive producer and staff up,” said one executive who has worked with him. “He’d probably be ready to go after a weekend.”
