The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for the Night

Great writing about the players behind the scenes of Late Night TV in the 90s. I looked forward to my nightly chapter and frequently cheated and read more than one a night. Flowed nicely, flashbacks were handed very well, and characters introduced and fleshed out nicely as needed.

Reading this after the recent Leno/NBC/Conan shenanigans made it even more interesting. I am left wondering if any of the NBC execs from that time were still left and involved in the recent "I call take backs!" of Leno.

Mr Carter, write another book about the latest incidents! :)

I started reading this author's Leno/Conan book first, and then I realized that I would get more out of it if I read the Leno/Letterman book first. It was really interesting to see how much flying by the seat of one's pants television executives do in real life.

That said, the author's attention to detail gets a little excruciating at points. If you are one of those people who can't keep track of elf names in fantasy novels, you are going to get tired of trying to keep track of network executive names in this book. They fly by with great speed.

Carter does a really good job of trying really hard not to be cruel to Jay Leno but at the same time getting across what a weird inhuman robot he is. At some point, however, the litany of "stuff show more about how Jay is not great" gets extremely repetitive. A little more editing could have resulted in a much tighter and more elegant book.

I think Gen-X (and older) readers who remember Johnny Carson will like this but younger readers are going to be puzzled about why people care so much about late night television. show less

The main take away from this book is never assume you have the position you have if you work with NBC. They are so messed up. Reading this 2 decades after it was written is hilarious because NBC still makes huge fuck ups with the tonight show and just handles it horribly. The book does great at giving background on Letterman, Leno and all the behind the scenes people involved in the battle for The Tonight Show after Carson announced he was stepping down. I felt the book was a bit unfair to Leno at times making him come off as a the bad guy, but it does explain why so many people don't seem to like him. But the flip side to that Letterman came off as a complete ass at times, yet he's viewed as the better of the two. I guess because the show more book is older it captures the feelings at the time and has since changed. show less

I don't know how accurate it is, but you really feel like you are right there in the middle of the story. Amazing inside account, I really hope there is a sequel in the works that covers the recent tonight show debacle.

While reading this book it feels as if you are a fly on the wall in all of the contact negotiations/network battles. Great read.

#1124 in our old book database. Not rated.