The War for Late Night (8 page)

There was no reason for Ziffren and Leno to have expected that their standard move to extend would set in motion anything other than the usual add-on years. But the request rolled the Mouse Trap ball out onto the first ramp of the still unfinished contraption that was NBC’s plan to secure its late-night future. When Graboff called Rick Ludwin and let him know the call about lengthening Jay’s contract had come, Rick didn’t need to do much math to work out the salient problem.

“This is going to extend beyond Conan’s contract,” Ludwin pointed out. He knew that by coincidence, not design, Conan’s contract was all but coterminous with Jay’s, lasting only a few months more. That had been an accident, because it wasn’t really advantageous to NBC to have both stars free to leave at more or less the same time if some arrangement could not be worked out. Now, Ludwin said, underscoring the point, if NBC simply agreed to Jay’s terms as it usually did, the network would have Jay locked into the show without having Conan locked in as well.

Graboff knew all this, of course, just as he knew that Fox had made a galloping run at OʹBrien in 2001 and likely was at the ready to sprint after him again. He also knew that Conan’s people had been braying at Zucker’s door about using him or losing him. It was time for the definitive meeting about late night.

Because the big decision had already been tacitly made, the actual discussion—which involved Zucker, Ludwin, Graboff, and NBC’s new top program executive, Kevin Reilly—went largely without drama. Graboff got the message clearly: “If we have to promise Conan
The Tonight Show
, we will.”

The only issue was how to accomplish this. Could they simply shut down Jay at the end of this deal, given that he was still cruising along in first place, throwing off dollars as he went? Did that make any sense? But then again, how long could they realistically ask Conan to wait before his hyperactive sled-dog team mushed him out the door to another destination?

Zucker made the final call on establishing the strategy. He told Graboff how he would handle it. They would go to Jay with a message: “Yes, we’ll extend your deal. But this is your last contract. Time to hand over the keys.”

Before they took that step, however, they had to be sure that Conan and his Wild Bunch would agree to cool their heels. That assignment fell to Graboff, who knew just the right person to call.

 

Jeff Ross had called nobody and pressured no one. He didn’t utz his friend Jeff Zucker in any way. Golf was golf;
The Tonight Show
did not come up over five-foot putts. It was important to Ross, the straightest of straight shooters, that Conan not be cast as anything even approaching the heavy in his pursuit of the
Tonight
assignment. Strong-arming wasn’t Conan’s style—and it certainly wasn’t Ross’s.

That was one of many reasons why Jeff Ross belonged to one of the tiniest clubs in show business: the league of the universally well liked. The Conan staff, the NBC management, the publicists, the other producers in the late-night brotherhood (and sisterhood, counting Debbie Vickers, who had nothing but affection and respect for her counterpart in New York)—nobody seemed to have a bad word to say about Jeff Ross, no matter how heated the circumstances. Instead, they used words like “solid,” “reliable,” “flexible,” “shrewd,” and “menschy.” Thin and wiry, dark hair cropped close, Ross, still in his forties, usually wore an inscrutable expression behind his John Lennon wire-frames, one that might have signaled dour, serious, or disinterested, but almost always indicated only that he was keeping his emotions—and everything else—under control. Conan often joked—sometimes in the middle of on-air monologues—about Ross’s Zen-like mien, imitating Ross in a mock mumble, “Yeah, it was OK; sorta funny; could have been better.” But he greatly valued what Ross had to say, because Jeff gave it to him straight. He lifted Conan when he needed lifting—which could be often, given OʹBrienʹs depressive tendencies and penchant for beating himself up—and he brought Conan back to earth when his ego started to soar. “Sometimes I would kill for a yes-man,” Conan said in an interview about his producer. “Jeff is completely honest with me. We argue, but Jeff doesn’t trade in compliments, doesn’t waste time stroking my ego.” Everyone around the show—and connected with Conan’s career—understood the critical role Ross played over the sixteen years they had put
Late Night
on the air together. He was the trusted counselor and more; he was the true-blue comrade.

In early February, when Jeff Ross got the unexpected call from Marc Graboff on the subject of what was then going on with Leno and his proposed contract extension, he took it as a completely unsolicited move by NBC to reach out to the Conan side.

Graboff made it clear that this was a back-channel conversation, not an official contact, network to talent. He had a simple question: Would Conan wait four years in exchange for a guarantee that he would ascend at that point to
The Tonight Show
?

The question being unofficial, Ross felt comfortable giving an unofficial response: “Look, the obvious answer is yes.” But of course he would take the question—quietly—to Conan.

As the two warriors who had shed the most blood building Conan’s television career from almost literally nothing, Ross and O’Brien shared an understanding that the rest of their team could never quite be part of. The agents Conan had hired were among the most impressive Jeff Ross had ever dealt with—and besides that, he was fond of them, especially Rick Rosen, who had become a confidant and friend outside the business. Ross knew they were dedicated to his guy and pushed to get the best for him. But they were still in a different business, and a different city, three thousand miles away. They were not in the offices at 30 Rock, sitting there every day with Conan, dragging him off the floor during the postmortems when he felt he’d botched a guest interview or a comedy bit. They did not really know what it took to make a show every day out of piles of written comedy notions and yellow cards with guests’ names stuck to a wall. And so, to Ross, the agents did not totally get it—not what Conan was all about as a performer, and not what
The Tonight Show
meant to him. For agents, in general, money seemed to be too much the prime factor in considering a client’s future, and a decision like the one they were now facing simply could not be based upon financial considerations alone. Waiting four more years to get to 11:35, when Fox and ABC were beating down doors with money and blandishments, might sound preposterous given how hot Conan was post-Emmys and post-anniversary show.

But Jeff Ross knew his guy, so the conversation about the news delivered by Graboff was going to be just between them. Ross would be telling Conan something he had longed to hear—NBC had a plan to give him
The Tonight Show
—but it was coming with a delay that Conan likely did not expect. So in his usual low-key style, Ross laid it out: NBC is talking about maybe extending Leno until 2008, and then guaranteeing you the gig . . . if you’re willing to wait. O’Brien’s nimble mind could make all the requisite leaps in an instant. This solution had an elegance to it: Jay would be accorded all honors due him with a lengthy farewell tour of duty; Conan would be rewarded for loyal service to the network. Was there any doubt? Conan said, “I’ll do it.”

Then the two compatriots had a little laugh together about how the call to propose this notion had come in from Graboff. They both knew who was really behind the deal.

As for the delay involved, while it seemed easy to Conan to say he would wait, at the same time it struck him: Who in show business waited that long for anything? It was absurd, maybe the most ridiculous request in the world. But it was also kind of comical. By the time he got to host
The Tonight Show
, he could well be riding onto the stage wearing a jetpack.

Still, he had no real reservations. Conan knew that if he refused and went to another network, and then at some indefinite point in the future Jay really did step down and someone else was named to host
The Tonight Show,
it would have haunted him forever. He needed to take this deal. He had to say yes.

It was mid-February 2004, and Conan O’Brien had the assurance he had been looking for: NBC was committing to him as the next host of
The Tonight Show
. But he could hardly unleash a celebration. Jay Leno didn’t know a thing about the deal. Nothing could be made public for a still-undetermined amount of time. But that didn’t mean Conan couldn’t share the happy news with a
few
people.

The secret was closely held; just the intimates Conan trusted. His wife, of course; and Jeff Ross. And a select few others.

On February 19, just days after learning the news, Conan, stepping up for his network as usual, participated in a gala event at the Waldorf-Astoria: The Museum of Television and Radio held a dinner to honor Tom Brokaw on his impending retirement as the anchor of
NBC Nightly News
. OʹBrien enjoyed a warm friendship with Brokaw and happily signed on as one of the hosts for the affair.

As the celebrity-fest was drawing to a close, O’Brien and Ross quietly invited Marc Liepis, the longtime NBC publicist assigned to their show, who had also attended the dinner, to join them for a nightcap. It was a signal of their great affection for Marc, an engaging, sweet soul of a guy as well as a dedicated Conan loyalist, much more of the show than of the network. The three men, still in their tuxes, repaired uptown to the famous Bemelmans Bar in the Carlyle Hotel, trundling in out of the February cold, lightly dusted with snow, like iconic characters in a sophisticated thirties movie of Manhattan nightlife.

They settled into one of the mocha-colored leather banquettes under the gold-leaf ceiling, across from the black granite bar with the famous murals by Ludwig Bemelmans arrayed behind it, and ordered a round of martinis. Unrecognized in the discreetly dim lighting, Conan stretched out his crane-like legs and leaned back to relax. The white-jacketed waiter arrived with the drinks. Piano music played softly under the conversation. Conan casually told Marc that he and Jeff had some news. But it was something Marc had to keep to himself—for a while.

“I’m getting
The Tonight Show
,ʺ Conan said, just a trace of how-about-that in his expression. Liepis, eyes widening, popped to attention: What did he mean he was getting
The Tonight Show
?

Conan explained the approach from NBC, the promise that Jay would be asked to step away after a last long-term deal, and his own commitment to NBC that he would wait his turn in exchange for the assurance that the show would be his. He also emphasized that Jay didn’t know about it yet.

Liepis was astonished—and overjoyed. He had long been a believer in Conan’s talent, and more than that, he just liked the guy, his integrity, his decency. Liepis had trouble believing Jay Leno would ever consider walking away from
The Tonight Show
. But if Conan was satisfied it was happening, he was satisfied. He was also flattered to his shoes to be included in the intimate circle that shared this gratifying moment.

Marc and Jeff Ross toasted Conan. All three of them understood how far Conan had come; they didn’t have to mention it. But it clearly colored the satisfaction evident in Conan’s face.

Of course, they agreed, they would need to be hypervigilant about keeping the secret. A slip, even around the office, could put the whole arrangement at risk. They decided they needed some code, some word or phrase the three of them could turn to if they needed to communicate about the still-private plan.

Conan had an idea: Instead of saying “Tonight,” they would say “Anderson Cooper 360” every time they wanted to refer to the show in question. Cooper’s nightly newscast with that title had recently begun its run on CNN. They toasted Anderson Cooper as well.

 

Back at NBC, Graboff had his back-channel answer. He next set a meeting with Rick Rosen in his office at Endeavor to go over the terms. Sitting on Rick’s couch, Graboff spelled them out: Conan would extend his own deal for the 12:35 show through to the end of the new agreement they were drawing up with Jay. The separate, specific deal for a new contract for
The Tonight Show
would be drawn up later, after they were sure Jay had signed on. Conan’s representatives would no longer engage with Fox or ABC or anyone else who came knocking about Conan’s future. As far as money went, well, Conan would have to stay at his 12:35 salary until he moved up, and then he would get “a little bump.” After all, the
Late Night
show didn’t attract anywhere near the revenue
The Tonight Show
did, so NBC could hardly afford to pay Conan some extravagant sum just for agreeing to stick around in the job he already had. Rosen emphatically countered with the argument that this was another four years of Conan’s taking something like one-third the salary he could have been making elsewhere. But of course he would take the offer to his client.

When Conan heard the financial terms, he realized he was almost certainly in a position to play hardball with NBC. “Look,” he could say, “I’m going to stay at twelve thirty, but it’s going to cost you.” But he informed his team that he wasn’t prepared to do even that. He realized he had to give things up—it was part of his nature: “Fuck me. I’m Catholic.”

 

This was the deal Jeff Zucker had painstakingly put together as he gathered himself for the daunting encounter with Jay that March afternoon in 2004 in Burbank. For support and expertise in late-night issues—and because he knew how much Jay respected him—Zucker brought along Rick Ludwin.

Ludwin had been an integral part of the planning for this moment. Of all the executives at NBC, he had the only ongoing, straight-line connection to both Jay and Conan. Ludwin’s position throughout had been clear to everyone else in the talks: He supported Jay now and always but he believed the future was Conan. Ludwin was as soft-spoken, unpretentious, and unassuming in his mid-fifties as he had been over his two-decade tenure as NBC’s late-night specialist. Still square shouldered and soft featured behind his professorial glasses, still frequently in uniform—blue blazer, gray slacks—Ludwin had the requisite reverence for NBCʹs late-night tradition. He saw
The Tonight Show
as a constant in the lives of Americans—“as comforting as your own living room,” as he viewed it. Even the strongest shows in prime time came and went, Ludwin would argue, but
The Tonight Show
kept on rolling, more than half a century on, “like Ol’ Man River.”