The War for Late Night (55 page)

Online, as might be expected given the discrepancy in age between the fans of the two comics, the pro-Conan movement was more like a power surge; Web comments ran heavily in his favor, and Twitter comments tipped to Conan over Jay by about fifty to one. Some commentators in the press started speculating that the battle with NBC was turning into Conan’s “Hugh Grant moment”—a reference to how the
Tonight
interview with the British actor after his arrest with a prostitute had fueled Leno’s march past Letterman in 1995.

If NBC cared about the rising ratings and all the attention, the Conan group didn’t notice it in the ongoing wrestling over how—or whether—to extricate Conan from his NBC chains. Polone thought the tone of the talks had changed after the manifesto, because it had made Zucker crazier and Conan stronger, a point he made sure to plant around the blogs. The NBC side interpreted that as evidence of Conan’s attack dog getting even more unreasonable. They were utterly convinced that Team Conan could sue all it wanted and NBC would win, because the contract Conan had signed contained no time-period protection. To the argument that earlier drafts did mention
The Tonight Show
as a program that started after the late local news, NBCʹs legal team replied that the clause was more than two contracts back and part of boilerplate in what had amounted to Conan’s Prince of Wales clause—that he would get the show if something happened to Jay.

In the deal Conan had signed in 2004 that guaranteed him the show in five years, no such language appeared, NBC argued, and even that earlier contract spelled out that Conan would sign a new contract before he ascended to the
Tonight
job. The NBC legal team considered Conan’s central pledge in his manifesto to be public posturing, because even as he declared that he would not participate in the “destruction” of the show, his legal team was stressing that he would, in fact, go on at 12:05. It frustrated Graboff and Andrea Hartman that the public didn’t seem to realize that Conan’s lawyers were
promising
he would go on even as he was proclaiming he would not.

They pointed to Rick Ludwin’s historical perspective. He had noted that
The Tonight Show
had originally aired at eleven fifteen, so there was precedent for moving its start time. The lawyers told the NBC negotiators that if they moved the show to four in the afternoon they might run into trouble with an arbitrator, but not for a shift of half an hour.

The terms of the contract specified that any dispute would be decided by arbitration, but either side could have always tried to file suit after an arbitration decision was rendered; of course, no one really had the stomach for that kind of extended ugliness, which was why they were sitting through so many unproductive sessions trying to work out a settlement.

Outside entertainment lawyers, considering the issue, saw big risks for both sides. NBC had strength in its contract position; it still seemed unaccountable that Conan’s team had overlooked the necessity of demanding time-period protection when virtually every other big star in late night had it. But the Conan side might have some tenuous standing to challenge the contract, these lawyers said, thanks to that previous deal. A more effective argument, several others emphasized, would have been that Conan had the right to expect his
Tonight Show
would remain at 11:35 because of its long history there. NBC’s own lawyers didn’t buy that interpretation, saying the contract trumped all.

If it came to a public legal battle, however, no one had any doubt who would win the sympathy points. Conan was a popular star apparently at the mercy of the whims of corporate executives. For NBC, the fact that he also had a public forum to make his case—one they were still paying for and
broadcasting
to the nation—was another reason to seek resolution over confrontation.

In the negotiating sessions early that week, Ron Meyer gently pressed both sides to find a way to split the difference in their financial demands, with little movement so far.

NBCʹs executives continued to lay the intransigence at the feet of Gavin Polone, whom they privately labeled a terrorist—even though the terrorist never stopped assuring NBC that if they would only change their minds, Conan was still ready to be their signature late-night star—bygones be bygones.

Jeff Gaspin, who had so long tried to fight for his plan and find a way for Conan to stay, could hardly believe that even Polone could have that much chutzpah. After orchestrating a battering of NBC and Jeff Zucker in the press, he was expecting the network to fall back in love with his client?

Perhaps sensing the need to soften some of the outside rhetoric in order to get something accomplished, several of the participants on the Conan side urged Polone to back off on the press assault. He didn’t think he should stop, he told them, but given the internal difference of opinion, early that week he lifted a few toes off the gas pedal.

 

Throughout the commotion Jay Leno maintained some personal distance from Conan and his travails. He made some jokes about the situation, mostly about NBC. He took note of all the incoming jokes about him, but he maintained, at least outwardly, his mantra that, in the comic world, anything was OK “as long as it’s funny.”

Kimmel’s show-long impression got special notice, of course—Jay could hardly have missed it. He had not once called Kimmel since their little romantic dance when ABC was wooing Jay. But the morning after the parody, when Kimmel settled into his writers’ meeting, the first comment was: “Hey, how long until Jay calls?”

At that precise moment, his assistant told him Jay was on the phone.

“Oh, fuck,” Kimmel said.

“Oh, yeah, saw the show last night,” Jay told Jimmy when he got on the line. “I thought, ‘Oh, that’s funny. Hey, it’s in the news.ʹ ”

“I’m glad you thought it was funny,” Jimmy said. “I was hoping you’d think it was funny.”

They talked a bit about Conan. Jay said he didn’t understand why he wouldn’t go on at 12:05. He didn’t express any real emotion about it—just surprise. Jay also repeated his own position that he had agreed to take the half-hour gig to protect his staff.

Kimmel didn’t find that explanation especially credible. Like many others, he had concluded Jay wanted to keep working on television, no matter what, simple as that. But he did believe Jay was probably being honest about his surprise at Conan’s refusal to accept the later start time. Kimmel didn’t really disagree with Jay on that point, figuring that Conan should have taken the 12:05 spot and ridden the folk-hero status for all he could.

“Yeah, he should have done it, because how much longer are you going to do it anyway, Jay?” Kimmel asked.

“I don’t know,” Jay said. “Maybe I’ll do it another three or four years. But I don’t see myself doing it after that.”

Jay also suggested that Jimmy come over to NBC and appear on the show, a suggestion Kimmel did not take seriously until some time after they hung up and Jay’s booking department called. They wanted him to do a “10 at 10” spot with Jay. Leno would be in his studio; Jimmy could stay in his own.

Kimmel realized at once he had to do it. He believed in television moments, and this would surely be a television moment. If nothing else, it would be fun to poke Jay a bit over this.

Jay was not doing much poking of his own—at least not directly at Conan. He did a mild joke the night after the letter, noting that Conan was, understandably, very upset. “He had a statement in the paper. Conan said NBC had only given him seven months to make his show work. When I heard that I said, ‘Seven months? How’d he get that deal? We only got four!’ Who’s his agent? Get that guy!”

But amid all the punch lines flying across the networks in late night that week, only one joke really mattered. Wednesday night, a clearly liberated Conan bounced out and hit his monologue spot free and on fire, again inspired by a huge outpouring of support from his studio audience.

“Ladies and gentlemen, hello there. I’m Conan O’Brien and I’ve been practicing the phrase ‘Who ordered the mochachino grande?’ Look for me, and please tip, OK?ʺ

The next joke may have contained a more serious message. “I’m trying very hard to stay positive here, and I want to tell you something. This is honest. Hosting
The Tonight Show
has been the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for me. And I just want to say to the kids out there watching: You can do anything you want in life. Yeah, yeah—unless Jay Leno wants to do it, too.”

 

At NBC the joke represented the point of no return. All throughout the legal wrangling, even after the manifesto, Jeff Gaspin maintained a quiet wish that Conan would examine his options one more time and decide that staying at NBC still made the most sense. Maybe Conan and Jay would finally talk, work it out; somehow Jay might assure Conan this was not a long-term proposition and he should stick it out at 12:05 for a while and come back strong after Jay stepped down.

That, of course, would once again secure the Holy Grail—keeping NBC’s two late-night stars at home.

After the joke, the Grail vaporized.

Gaspin got a call from Jay about the joke. This one did
not
strike Jay as funny. He asked Gaspin, “Why the fuck am I giving up a half hour for this guy?”

And Gaspin asked himself,
How could these guys work back-to-back if Conan hates him?
There was no longer any question about resolving this in a fashion that might keep Conan at NBC, as far as Gaspin was concerned. Now all it really was about was: How does this get settled; and when does Conan go on his way?

The joke landed like a mortar shell in one other important NBC constituency. Dick Ebersol had been quietly seething as the days rolled by and the onslaught against Leno and Zucker continued in the press and on various blogs—not to mention on the other late-night shows, especially David Letterman’s. It looked to Ebersol like an organized campaign of character assassination by forces on Conan’s side—and, he gathered from Allison Gollust and others, that meant one name in particular: Gavin Polone.

But Conan’s joke about Jay was finally too much for Ebersol. (The same night Letterman hit a similar point, saying, “Our good friend Ricky Gervais will be hosting the Golden Globes—if Jay lets him.”) Ebersol called Gollust and said he wanted to go public with a defense of Leno.

She ran it by Zucker, who gave his OK. That Thursday Dick had a lunch with members of the U.S. Olympic Committee. As soon as he returned to his office, he had a call from Gollust saying she had thought Dick’s plan over and run it by the NBC lawyers. They were concerned it might rebound against the network position. They didn’t want him to do it.

Ebersol hung up the phone and had one thought:
Fuck that
. He couldn’t stand what was happening. He was going to do this for Jay, knowing that others would interpret it as being for Zucker’s benefit, as well.

The interview with Ebersol appeared the following day on the Business section dress page in
The New York Times
. Ebersol unloaded on Conan without reservation, explaining that NBC had made the late-night move because Conan’s ratings had plummeted. Citing the jokes made about Jay by Conan and Letterman, Ebersol said it was “chicken-hearted and gutless to blame a guy you couldn’t beat in the ratings.” He called it “professional jealousy.”

Ebersol related his account of his meetings with Conan during which he had advised the host to broaden his act. That hadn’t happened, Ebersol said, and the result was “an astounding failure by Conan.”

If NBCʹs fear had been that Ebersol’s comments might come across as spraying lighter fluid on the brushfire raging between the network and Conan’s representatives, they had miscalculated. His remarks actually had the effect of tossing the Olympic torch into an oil tanker.

Gavin Polone went into hyperdrive, immediately calling a meeting with Jeff Ross and the PR advisers for Conan. “You see what happens?” he asked them, brandishing the Ebersol piece. “You gotta let me go do what I gotta do.” If NBC wanted a PR war, Polone was only too happy to oblige, because as far as he was concerned, his side had the far better story. All they needed to do was continue hammering NBC with the truth.

Even if it was decades old. Team Conan even dug up the ancient story of how Zucker had had Conan arrested at Harvard (for a
Lampoon
prank that involved stealing Zucker’s chair out of the
Crimson
office), an anecdote that had been reported many times before, but which played especially effectively in the context of Zucker’s threatening to fire him now.

Ebersol’s broadside may have galvanized Polone, but it pulverized his client. Conan felt shocked that NBC had suddenly decided that even the insult of a public demotion wasn’t enough. Now it was time to kill Conan. His show an “astounding failure”? His jokes proved he was “gutless” and “jealous” of Jay?

Conan believed he had taken the high road; few of his comments had been directed at Jay. OK, he did the one joke. But he wasn’t unleashing a venomous attack on him. Compared to others—Dave, Kimmel, or Howard Stern, who said on his radio show that he felt like vomiting at the name Jay Leno—Conan had been restrained. He had simply announced that he could not participate in something that offended him; now they were coming after him, savagely.

The tenor of the negotiations now shifted. NBC began looking less for a rationale to pay Conan a smaller settlement than for ways to control him while he was still on their air—and even for a bit after that. How much time did they need to keep him off the market? How much time did they need to keep him—more to the point his people—from spewing nastiness about NBC and Jay?

The level of nastiness certainly surprised Jay. He told himself not to take it personally, because, even after Conan’s poisonous joke, he believed what the other hosts were attacking was less him than the symbol of
The Tonight Show
, the pinnacle every comic aspired to achieving. Nobody was going after his wife or anything like that, so he tried to ride it out with shrugs.