The Late Night Battle for A-List Guests

The impending debut of NBC’s The Jay Leno Show is shaking up the late-night television landscape, prompting a feverish "booking war" among shows to get the best A-list guests. Aware that night talk shows live and die by the quality of the guests, the Leno producers are aggressively pursuing PR firms representing top celebs to book them up before competitors have a shot. The relatively settled booking hierarchy has been further disturbed by Conan O'Brien inheriting The Tonight Show. He is keen to make his mark on the late-night landscape and not be pushed around by Leno, his predecessor. "I've never seen it like this," a late-night insider told the Hollywood Reporter. "Now people are being much more strategic, and they are planning it out far more in advance.”