> I always got the impression that Carson owned his show outright, and that
> Late Night was a co-production (Carson/NBC), with WWP added into the mix
> around '91 or so. NBC had to have some claim to ownership of Dave's Late
> Night, otherwise the whole IP issue following his move to CBS ("Viewer
> Mail"=="CBS Mailbag", "Larry 'Bud' Melman"==Calvert DeForest, etc.) would
> have been a non-issue.If you'll forgive some overgeneralization here, it seems to work like this: A young host is happy to get a show, and the network owns it. If he's successful, during a contract negotiation, he demands a piece of the show and (usually) gets it. If he remains successful, his piece of the show gets bigger. If he's successful enough that the network wants to follow him with another talk show, he may demand ownership and some level of control over that later show. An established host moving to a new situation, like Dave at CBS, or Jay or Conan taking over Tonight, can demand some level of ownership to start. > Also, IIRC, it was after Carson retired and Jay took over that an "NBC > Studios" trademark started appearing on Tonight and Late Night (along with > the Big Dog & Broadway Video vanity cards, of course), so NBC was asserting > greater control over those properties, in an effort to reinforce their lock > on the 'franchise'. I'm not old enough to know exactly how Carson's ownership progressed over his history with the show, but we know NBC considered him valuable enough to eventually give him rights to his old shows as well as contemporary ownership. I think that when Leno started his Tonight Show, NBC made sure they were the primary rightsholder. Obviously, throwing Lorne's empire into the mix makes things murkier. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
