Cara's Reviews > The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, & the Network Battle for the Night

This is well-written and engaging, but it has a very weird ending. First written in 1995, it was re-released and updated in 2019. It begins, therefore, in 2015, as David Letterman retires from the Late Show with David Letterman, and then goes back in time to 1991, as Helen Kushnick and Jay Leno maneuver to get Leno named as Johnny Carson's successor. Carter does his best to be fair to both Leno and Letterman, and, if there's a villain in this book, it's the sole major female character, Helen Kushnick. She sounds like a terror, but it's hard to know if she really was as bad as is portrayed, or was she judged more harshly because she was a powerful woman in a male-dominated industry. It's no coincidence that the other people who figure most prominently in this book are white men.

It's clear that Letterman was often his own worst enemy and Leno was far more loyal (and savvy about showing that loyalty) to NBC and its affiliates. So I can understand why NBC went forward with Leno, even if I do think Letterman had greater talent.

But I seriously question Carter's depiction of Leno as a decent, emotionally-restrained guy who had no idea of the machinations of his manager. This is a guy who admittedly snuck into NBC Burbank headquarters one night and hid in a closet so that he could surreptitiously listen in on a conference call in which the leaders of NBC discussed whether to continue with him as host or replace him with Letterman. He then used direct quotes from the meeting to unnerve some of those leaders (who were also his fiercest defenders), and he created a perception that one of the legitimate meeting participants was leaking sensitive information. That isn't the behavior of a fundamentally decent guy who doesn't have a killer instinct.

This is also the guy who signed a contract to replace Carson before anyone knew that Carson would retire. I don't fault Leno for wanting what he got, but I am deeply skeptical that he was the innocent portrayed by Carter. It's more likely that he knew exactly what Helen Kushnick would do and was fine with her being the one to do the dirty work. He also had no hesitation on turning his back on Kushnick when NBC wanted to fire her. After months of refusing to listen or get involved when anyone came to him with a complaint about Kushnick, he turned on her in a matter of days. He did nothing to protect her position, and he clearly told NBC leadership that he wouldn't raise a stink if she was fired. Then he released a statement saying that he didn't think NBC was treating her fairly. For the woman who worked hard for him, promoted him, and engineered his rise to host of the Tonight Show, this was a two-faced attempt to make it seem that he was standing by her when, in fact, he was abandoning her. All things considered, Leno comes off as someone who looks out primarily for himself and shouldn't be trusted--someone who is perfectly happy to let someone else do the dirty work and take any resulting blame.

The really weird thing about the updated version is the epilogue. The main narrative closes with Letterman having opened on CBS and leading Leno in the ratings. The epilogue skips ahead about a year, when Leno appeared about to close the gap. It details the November sweeps period when Letterman once again opened up a sizable ratings lead and was then asked to host the Oscars. And then it just stops--no discussion of Letterman's Oscar performance or Leno overtaking him in the ratings later that year. Given the introduction's reference to Letterman's 2015 retirement, it's weird and abrupt that the Nov. 1994 sweeps period is discussed in great detail, and then Carter spends some time talking about the stress hosting the Oscars put on the Late Show's staff, and then the epilogue just stops.