Letterman speaks! Even more shocking, he sticks up for Jay

For the first time in I believe more than a decade, David Letterman has gone on the record for an interview about his, and his rival Jay Leno's, futures in television. He gave it to Jason Gay, who wrote it up for Rolling Stone. I don't recall Dave commenting on the late-night battle with Jay more recently than his 1997 interview with TV Guide and I don't recall any appearance in the print media since appearing on the cover of that nursing magazine following his bypass surgery. (Here he is on the cover of Time, 15 years ago, at the end of a summerlong media blitz to promote his jump to CBS.)

He didn't have a whole lot to say in his Q-and-A, but the very fact that he said anything remotely favorable to Leno is significant. Of course, maybe he just wanted to tweak the noses of NBC executives one last time.

Rolling Stone has this excerpt online, but the AP story has more:

"The way I feel now, I would like to go beyond 2010, not much beyond, but you know, enough to go beyond. You always like to be able to excuse yourself on your own terms," Letterman said in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine. [...]

Letterman, 61, questioned why NBC is proceeding with its plan to remove Leno, who consistently tops the late-night ratings. Conan O'Brien will take over "Tonight" in June 2009, with Jimmy Fallon moving into O'Brien's "Late Night" chair.

"Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I don't know why, after the job Jay has done for them, why they would relinquish that," Letterman said, adding, "I have to believe he was not happy about it." [...]

Letterman, who called O'Brien "a very funny guy," was asked about facing him as the new "Tonight" host. A cautious Letterman said he couldn't predict the outcome.

"It will be weird to see Conan at 11:30, don't you think? Which is not to say he can't succeed, but, no, I don't know what the competition will be like. I hope we're able to do OK."

Letterman also spoke about his "heartbreaking" final meeting with musician Warren Zevon prior to Zevon's death from cancer in 2003.

[Thanks, Thomas Denucci]