Late shift

“The Late Shift”

Identification and Discussion of nature of problem (Letterman and Leno)
The problem turns around the succession of Johnny Carson and his night show on TV, the most popular in US. Dave Letterman and Jay Leno were the candidates to take Carson program. NBC looks to the future by trying to secure “Tonight Show” host, Jay Leno, to take over when Johnny retires.  However,there’s David Letterman, the late night host who has spent the last ten years waiting to take over as the successor, he wants that show more than anything else, and trying to keep both parties without losing either. There is more people involved in this situation: The executives of NBC: Brandon Tatikoff, John Agoglian, Warren Littlefield, Michael Ovitz the agent who is hired by Letterman in orderto help him to get a good deal, Helen Kushnick Leno’s tough manager, and CBS executives: Ron Perth and Howard.

As both Dave Letterman and Jay Leno work for the NBC, the executives of CBS decided to steal Leno or Letterman to host his TV night show because they know that NBC won’t fight equally for both so they decided to start the negotiation. They met Ellen in a restaurant and offer her toJay Leno host the show and 6 million dollars, the initial plan was that Leno starts in September, but Ellen before taking a decision talks with NBC executives and told them that CBS is looking for Leno, and push them to make a commitment in order to assure Leno hosting the night show. She makes a move, she puts in a first page newspaper that John Carson is leaving the show, in order to rush thedeparture of John Carson. After this situation Letterman was notified that he doesn’t get the show and he looks for an agent who will be able to help him to achieve his goal, the night show. Mike offers Letterman a career plan with every network, but first he has to release Dave from the contract that has a clause that Dave cannot negotiate with other Networks first he has to negotiate with the NBC.Mike as a good negotiator makes a deal that eliminates the clause of open offers to Letterman and in return Dave has to extend his contract 3 more months. This is when CBS makes a good offer to Dave: the 11:30 show plus 12 million dollars to start.

An other important situation is when Leno starts to host the show, Ellen stays as an executive producer but she doesn’t have the best attitude tonegotiate and even more she was not able to release the tension and was not flexible. Because these facts Jay has to discharge her.

At the end of the movie Letterman accept CBS proposal and host “The Late Show” and Leno stays with NBC “Tonight show”

Identification and evaluation of alternative solutions

Letterman’s goal was to host the NBC tonight show, so he can accept the last proposal.But this decision represents less income and he has to wait until Leno finishes his contract, and there was no guarantee, there was a lot of uncertainty if he takes this decision. Even if his goal was to host the Tonight show a lot of issues could happen in this time and he can not trust in NBC executives because they already failed him at the beginning when they announced that Leno was thesuccessor of John Carson.

When Jay Leno signed the contract as a host of the tonight show there was no clause that ensure him as the owner of the program, but he shore up his BATNA when he decided to listen the meeting with the NBC executives, these give him the opportunity to negotiate in a stronger position, he avoid to appearing needy. Also he was able to frame the issue and was prepared for thechanges.

Ellen was a though manager, She never express respect for the other side’s experience and neither emphasize her openness to the other side’s interest and concerns. The negotiating environment that she settles down was pretty tense. But at the beginning of the movie she made a good job in negotiating the night show for Leno because she gathered information from both Networks (CBS and...