The Tonight Show - Don Ohlmeyer on the battle for late night

A long-running late night program, The Tonight Show was the first, and for decades the most-watched, network talk program on television. Since 1954 NBC has aired a number of versions of the show which has, as of the mid-1990s, seen four principle hosts: Steve Allen (1954-57), Jack Paar (1957-62), Johnny Carson (1962-92), Jay Leno (1992-2009) and Conan O'Brien (2009-?).
in this excerpt, TV Exectutive Don Ohlmeyer recalls the battle between David Letterman and Jay Leno for Tonight Show throne, and how the executives made the decision, and what he believes Jay Leno's strengths are.
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This interview was done in 2004.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• TOnight
• Show
• Jay
• Leno
• Dave
• Letterman
• Johnny
• Carson
• NBC
• battle
• for
• late
• night
• TV
• Executive

[useyourdelusion]

norm macdonald

[MegaObserver1]

One of the things that turned things around for Leno was the O.J. Simpson case. Letterman wouldn't touch it. Leno ran with it, with jokes, sketches ("The Dancing Ito's") and bits. Leno's O.J. bits became "water cooler" material. The same thing happened with the Michael Jackson stories and allegations. Leno constantly used those for comedy, but Letterman wouldn't touch it, and it cost him.

[gswoop40]

Mr. Ohlmeyer is/was a genius but wondering if he sold his soul in order to succeed at NBC.  A true spots pioneer who turned Leno's "Tonight Show" around. Not sure what my point is, but feel that Mr. Ohlmeyer got screwed by the beast that is NBC....