Business Wars

It’s the 1900’s and a young Harland Sanders learns how to cook out of sheer necessity when his widowed mother leaves him at home to care for his younger brother and sister. Crushing poverty prompts his mother to loan him out as a field hand when he’s just twelve, and from then on he’s on his own. He labors as a farmworker, a blacksmith’s helper, and a railroad fire stoker...

It's the Great Depression, and in one of Kentucky’s toughest corners, Harland Sanders defends his gas station business with sheer moxie and a loaded shotgun. He expands it into a thriving motel and restaurant, but impatient tourists balk at long wait times for his most popular dish — fried chicken. Eager to woo customers, Sanders risks life and limb experimenting with a new kitchen invention and creates a hit secret recipe...

Since the disruption of the broadcast viewing experience, late night comedy has gone through some growing pains. It’s no longer must-see TV, but late night water cooler moments remain as fiery political segments go viral online. For more on how the late night landscape has shifted since Johnny Carson’s exit from The Tonight Show, we speak with Meredith Blake, an entertainment reporter at the Los Angeles Times who covers television...

Jay Leno takes it on the chin from NBC when the network informs him his future as Tonight Show host has a looming shelf life. He needs to hand the keys to Conan O’Brien, who doesn’t want to be stuck in the 12:30 slot forever.  As Letterman’s ratings at CBS decline, NBC makes a bizarre decision to keep its hosts happy and in the family. It’s a decision that backfires in every possible way...

CBS makes David Letterman a very attractive offer to leave NBC—a move he’s very willing to make—but his long-time network is desperate to keep him. So desperate they dangle the prize that Letterman felt he deserved all along—the Tonight Show.  That doesn’t sit well with Tonight host Jay Leno, who takes a major defensive stance to hang on to the position he worked so hard to get.  And in the wake of the Letterman struggle, an unknown talent emerges into the late night stratosphere—Conan O’Brien...

When longtime Tonight Show host Johnny Carson shocks NBC with the surprise announcement of his departure, Jay Leno is anointed as the next host of the network’s flagship franchise. But there’s a problem: after a decade hosting Late Night at 12:30, David Letterman thinks Carson’s job should be his. Getting passed over is unacceptable to Letterman, and he’s going to exact a painful revenge on NBC...

Lady Bird Johnson’s audio diaries reveal how one vastly underestimated woman navigated the power, politics and polarization of her time to become arguably one of the most influential first ladies in history. From ABC News, makers of the hit series “The Dropout” and the award-winning daily news podcast “Start Here,” comes “In Plain Sight: Lady Bird Johnson” – an eight-part series told in the former first lady's own words.

Johnny Carson – the man who defined the Tonight show – is nearing retirement. But NBC has yet to settle on an heir. And that sets the stage for one of the most painful moments for the late night rivals battling for the throne. It will prove enormously embarrassing for Carson, Leno and Letterman. And they will vent their sentiments on stage. Meanwhile, Arensio Hall, a young, black comedian, is blowing past all of them, and posing the first serious challenge to Carson...

The late night saga begins in the uncharted wilderness of after-hours programming. In the early 1950s, an era when television broadcasting literally stops at 11:00 p.m., NBC dares to push the envelope with something called the Tonight Show. It works. It seems insane, but American audiences are ready to stay up--and advertisers are ready to spend big money to reach that audience. In the wake of Tonight’s success, CBS and ABC are left in the dust...

The cutthroat evolution of late-night talk shows is a long and fierce battle for advertising riches, ratings and sheer egotistical triumph. It’s the early 1980s and NBC’s Tonight Show is the unbeatable standard in its class, and its long-time host Johnny Carson the indisputable god of late night.   Hosts David Letterman, Jay Leno and later Conan O’Brien all worship Carson. Each of them desperately covets the Tonight Show seat and will stop at nothing to get it...