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December 2, 2008 7:20:44 PM CST

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Letterman Perplexed by NBC's Move to Ditch Leno

Posted Sep 3, 08 8:32 AM CDT in Glossies,  Arts & Living 

(Newser) – David Letterman isn't planning to head off into the sunset when his Late Night contract expires in 2010, the New York Times reports, telling a Rolling Stone interviewer that he would love to keep going at CBS—and that he was confused by NBC's decision to put longtime rival Jay Leno out to pasture next year. "I don’t know why, after the job Jay has done for them, why they would relinquish that,” said the 26-year veteran.

"I still find it hard to believe that Jay won’t be there,” Letterman said of the man who's long stood between him and the No. 1 spot. “I wish that we—and when I say ‘we’ I mean ‘me’—I wish I could have prevailed.” Letterman, who bitterly departed NBC himself in 1993, said he had plenty of empathy for Leno ("I have to believe he was not happy about it"), and there would be a spot for him on the Late Night couch.

Source New York Times

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Jay Leno performs during a Middlesex Community College Celebrity Forum at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium in Lowell, Mass., on Saturday, June 21, 2008.   (AP Photo/Lisa Poole)
In this image originally provided by CBS, David Letterman appears on the "Late Show with David Letterman."   (AP Photo/John Paul Filo, CBS, File)
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Unless I’m misunderstanding something, I don’t know why, after the job Jay has done for them, why they would relinquish that. I guess they thought it was a less messy way to handle what happened to me at NBC. I don’t know. - David Letterman

The way I feel now, I would like to go beyond 2010, not much beyond, but you know, enough to go beyond. - David Letterman

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television • NBC • David Letterman • Jay Leno • late night talk show • Conan O'Brien • Late Night • late night host • The Tonight Show


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