From 1962 to 1992, Johnny Carson was the king of late night TV. In 1992 Carson retired, and any hopes of a return to TV were squelched in January of 2005 when Carson died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of respiratory failure arising from emphysema.
Personally, I’ve missed Carson, but there’s good news, Johnny Carson is returning to TV, Antenna TV. The Tribune-owned digital network specializing in oldies shows, will start airing classic episodes of the Carson-hosted βTonight Showβ The full-length episodes of βThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carsonβ will air nightly at 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT with a repeat following at 2 a.m.
Antenna TV has struck a multi-year deal with Carson Entertainment Group to license hundreds of hours of the NBC late-night institution. Antenna will run episodes that aired from 1972 through the end of Carsonβs 30-year reign in in 1992. Because NBC owns the rights to βThe Tonight Showβ moniker, Antenna TVβs episodes will be billed simply as βJohnny Carson.β
βThis is not a clip show. This is full episodes of Johnny Carson, the man that everyone in late-night agrees was the greatest host of all time, airing in real time as he did back in the day,β Sean Compton, Tribuneβs president of strategic programming and acquisitions, told Variety. βTuning in to βThe Tonight Showβ is like taking a walk down Main Street in Disneyland. The minute you step in there, you feel good and you know itβs a place you want to stay. We cannot wait to bring this show to fans who remember Carson and to a new generation of viewers who have never had the chance to see Johnny in his prime.β
On August 12th Carson Entertainment made an announcement with the details:
βThe Tonight Showβ ran in a 90-minute format from the start of Carsonβs run in 1962 until 1980, when it was trimmed to an hour. Antenna will air hourlong episodes on weeknights and 90-minute installments on Saturday and Sunday at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT.
The scheduling of episodes will be carefully curated to run as themed weeks or months, as well as episodes that coincide with notable anniversaries, holidays and other milestones. Those could include everything from a weekβs worth of βTonight Showβ debuts by future comedy superstars such as Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno, Ellen DeGeneres, Richard Pryor, David Letterman, Jim Carrey and Tim Allen to a month of Christmas episodes in December. Antennaβs βTonight Showβ run will begin with the New Yearβs Day episode from 1982 featuring Eddie Murphy and βMASHβ star McLean Stevenson.
With all the hubbub over changes in late-night TV during the past two years, Compton had the idea to revive Carsonβs βTonight Showβ in a big way. Carson Entertainment Group, headed by Jeff Sotzing, Carsonβs nephew, was immediately receptive.
βI think thereβs a demographic out there that is really going to eat this up,β Sotzing told Variety. βThe show will now be able to be seen by so many people who havenβt seen it before.β
The deal involved nearly six months of negotiations with Hollywoodβs talent guilds and the American Federation of Musicians. The talks were complicated because thereβs not much precedent for residual fees for full-length reruns of a vintage variety show re-airing on a digital broadcast channel. A few weeks ago the deal almost fell apart over cost issues that seemed insurmountable, but Compton and his team kept hammering away until compromises were reached.
Tribune execs are determined to keep each episode as intact as possible β which means negotiating new agreements for the showβs many musical performances on an episode-by-episode basis, in most cases.
The full-length segments will re-introduce viewers to the show that cemented the template for the late-night talk-variety format, from the monologue to goofy banter with sidekicks to showcasing promising comedians. Carson also invented a host of characters over the years, including Carnac the Magnificent, Art Fern and Aunt Blabby, as well the leading the βMighty Carson Art Playersβ sketches. Carson, Ed McMahon and bandleader Doc Severinsen were also famous for doing in-program commercials. Tribuneβs sales department is looking to set up creative sponsorship deals piggybacking on those now-priceless integrations, Compton said.
Carson Entertainment has marketed home video releases of full-length βTonight Showβ episodes in the past. But thatβs not the same as being able to tune in every night as the show originally aired.
Sadly, the first 10 years of Carsonβs βTonight Showβ are lost to history, with only a handful of episodes that survive. When the βTonight Showβ made its historic move from New York to Burbank in 1972, Carson realized that NBC had no archive of his older episodes. From then on, Carson Entertainment invested in state-of-the-art archival technology to preserve his legacy β a focus that continues today.
The 1972-1992 episodes have been digitized and meticulously transcribed and cataloged. The master tapes are buried 600 feet below the earth in a salt mine in Hutchinson, Kan. There are multiple digital copies housed in safe locations as well, according to Sotzing.
βWe continue to spend money to protect the library and make sure itβs a working library,β he said. With digital technology, βitβs amazing how we have gone from 50-pound two-inch videotapes to having hundreds of shows on a single (computer) drive.β
Carson was pleasantly surprised after his retirement that there was a home video market for older βTonight Showβ episodes. Sotzing said he has no doubt his uncle would be happy that his lifeβs work still had value to a modern TV network.
Launched in 2011, Antenna TV is carried on the multicast channels of broadcast TV stations around the country, including Tribune-owned stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and other top markets. All told, Antenna at present is available in 102 TV markets reaching 78% of the nationβs television households. Antenna does not have broad SVOD rights to the βTonight Showβ episodes but will be able to make them available on a limited basis for authenticated streaming through MVPD partners.
Antennaβs schedule lineup at present is anchored by such evergreens as βAll in the Family,β βBewitched,β βGreen Acres,β βFather Knows Best,β βThe Partridge Familyβ and βLeave It to Beaver.β The investment in Carsonβs βTonight Showβ library is a sign that Tribune is ready to raise the profile of Antenna TV. The channel is profitable even with a modest, older-skewing audience. The hope is that a combination of nostalgia and interest in the legend of Carson will drive broader sampling of the channel.
The βTonight Showβ project has been a labor of love for Compton, who has screened hundreds of episodes to prepare for assembling the themed packages. The plan is for Antenna to be nimble in programming episodes on short notice to respond to headlines and current events.
βWith Johnny you just have everything,β Compton enthused. βOn the night of (the 2016) Indy 500, weβll have an episode of Johnny talking about about the race. On Christmas Eve, weβll have an episode with Jimmy Stewart telling stories about the making of βItβs a Wonderful Life.β Our possibilities are endless.β
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