Entries Tagged 'Letterman' ↓

As I type these words I’m half-listening to an NBC conference call/press conference, live from 30 Rock, where Lorne Michaels and a bunch of NBC bigwigs are introducing Jimmy Fallon as the next host of "Late Night." Fallon’s appointment, though, has been widely reported for weeks if not months.
Former "Saturday Night Live" standout Fallon will take over Conan O’Brien’s "Late Night" chair sometime in the first half of 2009, but that’s about the only specific anyone has to give us. There are few scraps of info on what Fallon’s "Late Night" will be like - he says he’s not going to "reinvent the wheel," and that there will be comedy and interviews and music. He just said that one change he’s going to make is that "Late Night" will now be "a morning show." Rimshot please!
This, of course, is just the first of many shoes to drop as NBC […]

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I’m cool. I’m cool. Hey everybody. Look at me smile. I’m John McCain. I’m on a late-night talk show. Letter-Man. I’m not at all similar to Montgomery Burns. Elect me! Vote for me! I’ll smile all you want! And rule you with an iron fist!

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Sen. Barack Obama delivered the Top 10 Barack Obama Campaign Promises on CBS’ "Late Show With David Letterman" last night, and while late-night appearances are now a commonplace among candidates, this was pretty good. Being from Massachusetts, my favorite was naming Mitt Romney "Secretary of Lookin’ Good." Which is, of course, all the two-faced creep is good for. Here’s the video, but you can also see it and read the list at Letterman’s site.

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Letterman’s deal with the WGA means he gets writers, but it also means he can book guests on his show who won’t cross picket lines. The other hosts, like Leno and Conan and Colbert, are stuck with fewer options.
Meanwhile, Letterman’s got a monopoly on folks like Lucy Liu, shown here arriving at the taping for last night’s show.
Yeah, that’s an incentive to bargain right there.
Ah, to own one’s own production company!
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The much ballyhooed - by us, among many others - return of late-night TV shows on Wednesday was, well, much the same as the old late-night scene, at least in terms of ratings.
Despite lacking writers due to the strike, NBC’s "Tonight Show With Jay Leno" topped the professionally written "Late Show With David Letterman" by about a million viewers in early ratings (5.8 million to 4.7 million). The other shows lined up about as usual. But everyone got a bigger audience than usual, too, thanks to the ballyhoo.
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The much ballyhooed - by us, among many others - return of late-night TV shows on Wednesday was, well, much the same as the old late-night scene, at least in terms of ratings.
Despite lacking writers due to the strike, NBC’s "Tonight Show With Jay Leno" topped the professionally written "Late Show With David Letterman" by about a million viewers in early ratings (5.8 million to 4.7 million). The other shows lined up about as usual. But everyone got a bigger audience than usual, too, thanks to the ballyhoo.
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Both late-night hosts went for writers strike jokes big-time. It was when they moved to other material that the difference became clear.

CBS’ "Late Show With David Letterman" and NBC’s "Tonight Show With Jay Leno" returned to the air tonight for the first time since the writers strike began Nov. 5, and the difference was that Letterman had writers - and Robin Williams. Both shows opened with a barrage of strike humor, and Leno - apparently writing his own monologue - had gags like "There are more people picketing NBC now than watching NBC." His most pointed piece was a tongue-in-cheek look at NBC honcho Jeff Zucker’s mansion and butler, compared to the squalid shanties of "Writer Town."

For his part, the newly bearded Dave went on about the pain of spending time with his family during the strike, and reassured his audience that the pickets outside weren’t angry writers but "people […]

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Tonight is the biggest night for the two-month-old writers strike since the producers stomped away from the table in December. With no talks scheduled and anger rising on both sides, the late night hosts will return to the airwaves with new shows for the first time since the WGA went to the picket lines on Nov. 5. (Yeah, yeah, Carson Daly’s back already, but that barely counts.)

What’s going to make it really interesting is that CBS’ "Late Show With David Letterman" and "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" will be staffed by writers under a special deal that Letterman struck with the WGA, while NBC’s "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and "Late Night With Conan O’Brien" and ABC’s "Jimmy Kimmel Live" will all be trying to entertain us without professional comedy scribes. Letterman and Ferguson may also have an easier time booking big-name star guests who don’t want to […]

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David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants company has struck a deal with the WGA that will return the writers to "Late Show" and the Worldwide Pants-owned "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" on Jan. 2, when those two CBS series and their late-night competitors all return to the air. That should give Letterman the creative edge over NBC’s Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, who will return sans writers with shows devoted to musical performances and celebrity interviews. The question is whether it will affect the overall strike situation. If the other late night shows in turn put pressure on their networks…or if Letterman’s ratings soar…it could add an incentive for the moguls who run the other shops to return to the negotiating table. But this is only a vague hope at the moment.
The reports:

Announcement from the writers’ side. (United Hollywood)
And from Letterman. (TV Decoder)
Insiders say the WGA was […]

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Step one came at the end of last week as the WGA announced it would respond to the producers’ suspension of talks by trying to divide and conquer - that is, negotiate individually with studios and producers. If either side begins to shatter, it could lead to a quick end to the strike, at least that’s the thinking. All the writers have to do then is get one of the big moguls to break rank. The producers’ group, the AMPTP, dominated by a handful of huge conglomerates, called the WGA’s move grasping at straws."
But the big news came Saturday with word that David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants production company would be the first the try to reach an independent, interim deal with the WGA. Letterman has been spending a ton of money out of
pocket to pay his non-writing staff even while his show and "Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson," […]

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