Tuesday, June 9, 2009

David Letterman: Three more years?

The Live Feed blog reports that CBS is working on a deal that would keep David Letterman on the air through 2012. (His current contract expires next year.)

With the recession hurting TV ad revenues, CBS has managed to get a lower license fee to keep Dave on at 11:30: "Previous agreements gave the host a salary of around $30 million per year. It's not clear if the fee cutback impacts Letterman's salary, or just production costs."

Considering the new competition at 11:35, Letterman is probably eager to go up against a new rival, and perhaps end his TV career as the late night ratings leader.

4 comments :

  1. Santiago R. said...

    You dont know what GREAT news this is for me. Getting Dave till 2012 or longer is the best thing Ive heard about late night in a while!

    I cringe at the thought of him retiring and Im sad about it already, even if its a few years away. I only wish I could have watched him from an earlier time in my life.

  2. Talk Show News said...

    Hi Santiago, just out of curiosity, where are you? Glad to have you commenting!

  3. The Waco Kid said...

    Bummer. I hope Letterman retires. If only because then I don't feel bad about watching Conan instead of him. Letterman is great. It was perfect before: Letterman, O'Brien, bedtime. Now I've got to choose, which bums me out. But I grew up with the CoCo (aka the Cone-Bone) and with him to the Tonight Show goes I.

  4. Santiago R. said...

    Im in Ecuador (South America). So my options are pretty limited when it comes to late night TV.

    We used to get ABC, CBS and NBC before, but now we dont get ABC anymore, which is fine with me. I cringe at the thought of having lost CBS and Dave tho. The cable provider said ABC is just not available for this country anymore. Oh well, I only watched AFV on that channel anyway. haha.

    You probably dont remember but I wrote you a thank you email praising you for the awesome late night line-ups page a long time ago and you were gracious enough to even respond to me. That was pretty cool.