One of our readers, Jeff Glover, writes to ask:
This week, Letterman is running reruns from just four weeks ago. What gives? I understood after 9/11, the late night shows didn't want to go too far back for fear the Bush-bashing would seem unpatriotic but why can't Dave and Jay rerun shows from a little farther back? Or why wouldn't they go back and pick older shows but edit out the dated parts? Why don't they do the reruns as "best of" shows?
After 9/11, Bush jokes were briefly a consideration but time and pretzels seem to have alleviated that concern. No, the problem — and this goes back a bit — is that Americans are increasingly reticent to watch dated episodes of what is supposed to be a topical show. This became a problem back when Johnny was in power. Once upon a time, they'd run shows from (often) a year earlier with only a modest drop-off in the ratings. Some combination of increased competition and changing audience tastes has caused viewers to be less tolerant of this so Johnny had to start plucking his reruns from not-so-long-ago and to stop billboarding them as "The Best of Carson." The hope then, as it is now with Dave and Jay, is that if you pick a fairly recent show, a lot of viewers won't realize it's an oldie and the ones who do won't be discomforted by a lot of glaringly past-tense references. For a time, Carson's talent coordinators tried to get guests to not mention dates; to say, "My new album comes out in two weeks" instead of "My new album comes out May 3rd." This was so that, if and when the episode was recycled, there wouldn't be that extra reminder of its age.
Weakening ratings for reruns were high among the factors that led to Johnny's decision to retire. You may have read that, at one point, Arsenio Hall's show was looming to move into first place. A close analysis of the ratings at that time yielded the deduction that Johnny's reruns were his Achilles' Heel. Arsenio brought a lot of new viewers to late night TV but to the extent he took audience from Carson, it was largely because of Johnny's reruns. People saw that Johnny had a show that was notably out of skew with the day's events so they'd flip over to see who Arsenio had in his house and, sometimes, they enjoyed that show enough to tune it in even when Johnny was new. (Oddly enough, "This is an old show" seems to be more of a turn-off than "I've seen this before.") The nights Leno was guest-hosting, The Tonight Show did fine — generally garnering ratings as high as Carson's but with younger demographics. When Johnny did new shows, he also did fine, at least in the raw numbers, leaving aside the age of his viewership. It was his recycled episodes that weren't competitive for any audience and that led to this dilemma: What would they do when some real competition — i.e., someone more threatening than Pat Sajak or Alan Thicke — came along? Johnny didn't want to work more nights and if they'd cut back on reruns and increased Leno stints, Jay would have been hosting Johnny's show as often as Johnny. Couldn't have that.
Letterman's people once tried a week or two, pasting together "best of" reruns from earlier shows but it didn't work. The ratings were no higher than any other reruns and may even have been lower than unedited shows would have received. Folks at both the Letterman and Leno operations have occasionally discussed whether it might make their old shows more palatable if they taped new intros to them. The general consensus at the moment seems to be that it's not wise to call attention to the fact that an episode isn't brand, spanking new.
Rumor has it that Dave's current negotiations involve the possibility that he will use guest hosts in the future. This may be simple hypochondria or it may indicate a desire to model his schedule more on Mr. Carson's. Either way, it probably reflects an awareness that the day may soon come when, to be competitive, a late night show will go with even fewer…possibly no reruns. They'll re-air the shows in the early A.M. or perhaps on cable channels, but not in that choice 11:35 time slot. (And what do we think the odds are that Jay Leno will take a night off? Oh, I dunno…what do we think the odds are that Kenneth Lay will be sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom again any time soon?)