>From Chicago: Vote early and often ... it's --------------------------------------------- LATE SHOW NEWS for Tuesday, March 15, 1994 Issue #5 A weekly electronic sheet by Aaron Barnhart --------------------------------------------- 3. TIME TO BRING BACK THE GRAINY BLACK-AND-WHITE U.S. MAP WITH THE ANIMATED PULSATING TRANSMITTER The final numbers on _Late Show_'s Olympic fortnight: an average rating of 8.3. You may recall the conservative estimate of 7 that was given when it was first learned Dave would have 100% live clearance among the affiliates for the Winter Games. Dave's ratings normally average around 6 with only 75% of CBS stations airing the show when they're supposed to. A job well done, you say. Unfortunately, reports from individual major markets suggest that despite the triumph of Dave and his Mom with the affiliates, the late night race is far from won. For instance, in San Francisco Dave airs against other stations' 11 o'clock newscasts, and until Lillehammer had never won the time slot. In Houston and Nashville, Dave is stuck at 11:05 because CBS affiliates in those towns say they get better 10:35 ratings from tabloid t.v. magazines. (And they realize more local advertising revenue.) Syndication promises to be a sore spot at NBC, too. MCA-TV, which is producing former NBC weasel Brandon Tartikoff's new late-night entry _Last Call_, says it's going to hold KRON San Francisco to a legal obligation to air its show and not _Late Night with Conan O'Brien_ at 12:35. We know little right now about _Last Call_ and TriStar's late- night entry _The Newz,_ except to say that each has been sold to markets covering well over half the country. Both shows appear to have ensemble casts rather than a big star behind a desk. The 30-minute _Last Call,_ whose promotion campaigns suggest a cross between _American Journal_ and _Politically Incorrect,_ is winning over a lot of ABC affiliates who plan to air it after Ted Koppel's _Nightline._ _The Newz_ is an hour long and has mostly been marketed to independents. (We *are* a little put off by _Last Call_'s billing itself as "the late night, up-to-the-minute, dis, banter and talk show where nothing is sacred." "Dis" in the same breath as "banter" -- whose harebrained idea was that? And isn't "nothing is sacred" the intellectual property of Comedy Central? Never mind: just give us Martin Lawrence doing a live "dis" of Tartikoff's former employers and we'll know you mean it.) But enough of the weasel talk. We are reminded of Bill Carter's observation that the late-show format is frequently underrated because it looks so easy. What begins with promise goes sour quickly as the relentless nightly exposure reveals a show's weaknesses and tests its viewers' patience. More than any other time slot, the late night is marked by viewer-show relationships. Perhaps this is why so many people will watch a fading old rerun of their beloved _M*A*S*H_ or _Cheers_ just before turning in. So if _Last Call_ turns out to be a lame program, who cares how many markets it's in? Still, the stakes are higher for CBS, which is accustomed to near- total compliance with its programming schedule. _Last Call_ is happy to get 80% of the country covered, never mind at what hour. Black Rock wants Dave on at the same time, everywhere. In the end, it may be the fickleness of some well-placed station managers, not the quality of any given program, that determines _Late Show_'s long-term success. 2. MEDIA BITES The _Economist_ reports that Jay Leno's people nixed a recent appearance by Jeff King, whose dogsled team won the 1993 Iditarod race in Alaska, because of protests from animal-rights groups. HBO has optioned Bill Carter's _Late Shift_. 1. THE LINEUPS (with S. Trowbridge) LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN, CBS, 11:35 P.M. EST Tu 3/15 Jay Thomas, Elle MacPherson ("Sirens"), Crash Test Dummies We 3/16 Dick Vitale, Carole King Th 3/17 Sally Field, Carly Simon, Robert Duvall ("Look at the balls on Brando!"), late rerun Fr 3/18 Sam Donaldson, Mike Myers, Nanci Griffith, late rerun Mo 3/21 Ron Howard, Sheryl Crow March Madness starts Thursday on CBS, and since unlike the Olympics, you can't just tape-delay and edit these things down to a one-hour post-Dave nugget, they're throwing in the towel and airing reruns at the wee-wee hours this Thursday-Friday and the next. Check your local t.v. listings: S. Trowbridge says the show should be airing at 12:35 a.m. but the Chicago area _TV Guide_ says 1:05 a.m. THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO, NBC, 11:35 P.M. EST Tu 3/15 John Hiatt We 3/16 Richard Simmons, Jodeci, Camille Jordan, Puck the talking parrot Th 3/17 Jason Alexander Fr 3/18 Siskel and Ebert, The Knack, John Mendoza Mo 3/21 Richard Belzer, Marty Stuart and the Staple Singers LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN, NBC, 12:35 A.M. EST Tu 3/15 Mary Lou Retton, The Skatalites, Brian Austin Green We 3/16 Green Day, Hulk Hogan Th 3/17 Barbara Eden, Lemonheads Fr 3/18 Patti Davis, Dana Gould Mo 3/21 (to be announced) LATER WITH GREG KINNEAR, NBC, 1:35 A.M. EST Tu 3/15 Roseanne Arnold We 3/16 Harry Shearer Th 3/17 Jennifer Jason Leigh Mo 3/21 Chris Isaak THE ARSENIO HALL SHOW, Syndicated Tu 3/15 Dennis Miller, model Anna Nicole Smith We 3/16 Benoit-Freeman Project Th 3/17 Leslie Nielsen, Domino Fr 3/18 (to be announced) Mo 3/21 Tony Curtis, Boyz II Men The E! entertainment television cable network broadcasts reruns of _Late Night with David Letterman_ "seven Daves a week" at 10 p.m. Eastern time. Monday through Friday, reruns can also be viewed at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern. Normally at this point we would share with you the listings for this week's reruns as announced on the E! update line. Unfortunately, as of 3 p.m. Chicago time on *Tuesday,* the recording had still not been updated. We hasten to remind the good folks at E!, should any of them happen to be reading this electronic sheet, that as their channel is not carried by a substantial number of cable operators, including Cablevision and TCI in Chicagoland, it just might be in their interest to do some timely promotion. Or otherwise maybe we will grow catty and decide to run this free advertisement for E! when *we* feel like it. --------------------------- Send news and comments about this electronic sheet to letterman@mcs.net Entire contents Copyright (C) 1994 by Aaron Barnhart. All rights reserved. Redistribution prohibited without written permission of the author, with the exceptions that a single user (a) may retrieve LATE SHOW NEWS from the archive listed below by anonymous FTP, and (b) may send to another single user by electronic mail where an electronic mailing list such as Majordomo is not employed. LATE SHOW NEWS is available by anonymous ftp from ftp.mcs.net in the directory /mcsnet.users/barnhart/letterman/late-show-news. If you have e-mail only and can't get this sheet off Usenet, send mail to letterman@mcs.net to be added to the LATE-SHOW-NEWS mailing list. -- Aaron Barnhart letterman@mcs.net