How we love a tale of apparent network screw-ups. I always felt that too much was made of seeming incompetence in the Letterman/Leno nastiness that formed the basis of the book and movie, The Late Shift. Soon after the latter came out, I was at a party where a network guy — someone who'd had zero to do with it — started in on how inept NBC had been in the handling of the changeover. On and on he went until someone asked, "Okay, what would you have done?"
And then it got a little messy because I knew the story pretty well and, every time the network guy said what he'd have done, I corrected the details. He'd say, "Well, I would have told Dave this…" and I'd jump in and remind him, "But at that point, Johnny was saying this." To which he'd respond, "Oh. Well, then I would have had Jay do that" and I'd say, "But at that point, Jay's contract said this." And on and on. The gent couldn't come up with any concrete action he would have taken, other than what was actually done, without rearranging the reality of the situation.
After about 20 minutes, he finally said, "Well, I would have treated everyone better," which of course meant that he couldn't even quarterback on Monday morning. Even with hindsight — knowing that which the players did not know at the time — he couldn't come up with a workable Plan B.
I dunno how the current Letterman/Koppel scuffle is going to play out. My guess right this minute is that Dave stays at CBS, Koppel limps along at ABC for a time while they look for a replacement and a more graceful way to ease him out of the time slot, and Bill Maher goes elsewhere for a much better deal. But regardless of the outcome, this dust-up strikes me as a clearer example of TV executives bungling negotiations. It probably won't spawn a book or a movie with a guy in a bad wig playing Dave…but this one seems sillier because it was so unnecessary. There had to be an eventual war over who'd replace Johnny because, sooner or later, Johnny had to leave. But trying to bring in Letterman to replace Koppel now is just a matter of greed. Nightline is, despite what some anonymous person claimed to The New York Times, profitable. It's not as profitable as Letterman would probably be in that position but you can't lose money with a news show that comes in second in its time slot.
Someone oughta remind the boys at Disney that this mistake was made before in ABC late night. Back when Dick Cavett was opposite Johnny Carson, he put on an award-winning, well-respected show that did a lot to counter the schlock image of so much else the company was then airing. It also finished a respectable second to Johnny and made money. Somehow, this was not enough for the folks then in charge of the alphabet network. They reduced Cavett from every night to one week a month, folding him into a rotating format that included specials and the second coming of Jack Paar. They called it ABC's Wide World of Entertainment but they might as well have named it The Golden Goose because they slaughtered a profitable enterprise and wound up with bupkis. Paar bombed, Cavett was destroyed, the specials flopped. Their whole late night franchise collapsed and for years they derived neither cash nor prestige after 11:30 until, at long last, they garnered some of each by handing the time slot over to — wait for it — Ted Koppel.
History will not repeat itself precisely, especially if Letterman does go to ABC. He'd probably do as well there as he has on CBS, especially if CBS doesn't come up with a strong replacement. (The primary benefit to his ratings would not come from demographics or lead-ins. It would come from the elimination of Nightline. I don't think Letterman would even be considering the move if he thought CBS had a promising option for his slot.) But the more likely scenario is that he'll stay where he is and the whole negotiation will merely have forced ABC to frag Koppel and Maher before they were ready. That strikes me as a lot dumber than anything surrounding the sturm und drang of who'd get to sit behind Johnny's desk.