The War for Late Night - Bill Carter

Written by Bill Carter
Read by Sean Kenin
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 128 Kbps
Unabridged

A dramatic account of the politics and personalities behind NBC’s calamitous attempt to reinvent late-night television.

When NBC decided to move Jay Leno into prime time to make room for Conan O’Brien to host The Tonight Show - a job he had been promised five years earlier - skeptics anticipated a train wreck for the ages. It took, in fact, only a few months for the dire predictions to come true. Leno’s show, panned by critics, dragged down the ratings - and the profits - of NBC’s affiliates, while ratings for Conan’s new Tonight Show plummeted to the lowest levels in history. Conan’s collapse, meanwhile, opened an unexpected door of opportunity for rival David Letterman. What followed was a boisterous, angry, frequently hilarious public battle that had millions of astonished viewers glued to their sets.

In The War for Late Night, New York Times reporter Bill Carter offers a detailed behind-the-scenes account of the events of the unforgettable 2009/2010 late-night season as all of its players - performers, producers, agents, and network executives - maneuvered to find footing amid the shifting tectonic plates of television culture.

Date of release: 2010
Length: 15 hours