Life After ‘Late Night’ : Television: On the eighth anniversary of his ground-breaking series, David Letterman says he’ll do it for another two years and then review his options.

David Letterman has his future in television pretty well mapped out.

When his groundbreaking, late-night NBC series ends, he says, “I don’t think I’ll ever want to do another TV show.”

Unless, he acknowledges, he inherits “The Tonight Show” when Johnny Carson, now 64, retires.

“I’ve been able to do everything I’ve ever wanted to do” on “Late Night With David Letterman,” the 42-year-old comedian said in an interview at NBC studios in Burbank.

Letterman, based in New York, was in town last week to tape his show’s eighth anniversary special, a 90-minute outing at the Universal Amphitheatre. It will be broadcast tonight at 9:30 on Channels 4, 36 and 39.

As for “The Tonight Show,” he said, “I guess all along, I sort of thought it would be nice to be considered as a possibility when Johnny retires. And I’m sure there must be a handful of people who want to be considered as a possibility.”

When the name of Jay Leno, Carson’s regular substitute host, was mentioned as a contender, Letterman nodded and said, “Oh yeah. Yeah.”

He added: “If the show is offered to me, that would be great. If it’s not, I still have my hands full at 12:30 (the nightly starting time of his series).”

Wearing a black T-shirt, khaki trousers and sneakers, Letterman settled into a chair at a large table in an NBC conference room and said that he and the network were “finishing negotiations on another contract” to extend the series.

But, he said, “I think it makes sense to do it for another two years and then seriously consider whether you’ve got a life with it beyond that.”

It’s difficult to imagine Letterman, a hugely influential TV force of the 1980s, not popping up on the tube even if he eventually has no series.

What would he do?

Well, he and Disney studios started talking movies for him long ago: “The deal, I think--I think--is still on,” Letterman said. “Money has changed hands. Yeah. And I think (big laugh) they would like it to change hands again.”

Thus, if he winds up “Late Night” in a few years and there’s no “Tonight Show” in his future, “I think that’s when you can expect the first of what will probably be three mediocre movies from me. I think I would devote my full attention to films. I can’t imagine starting another talk show.”

In fact, he said, he recently turned down approaches from ABC and Fox TV to start up new shows on their networks. ABC’s idea, he said, was for him to follow Ted Koppel’s “Nightline,” a time slot finally given this week to disc jockey Rick Dees, who’ll launch a comedy series on the network in July.

When the approaches came, Letterman said, “I just thought to myself that I don’t wanna uproot and pack up and go to another operation and start this show again somewhere else.”

Of the two other networks, he said, “the one that interested me” was ABC: “That made some sense with me, whereas with Fox, the thing they’ve got to overcome sooner or later is their lineup of affiliates. Just by virtue of being the new network, they’re gonna get the weak affiliates, and I think that’s where you’re gonna get killed.

“I think that’s what happened to Joan Rivers, and that’s what happened to every other incarnation of that show. It’s just that, you know, they were on Channel 58 in West Tipton, Ind., and you can’t overcome that.”

Letterman has tossed a number of barbs at Fox on his show. And some of the funniest and liveliest moments on “Late Night” came when Fox star Tracey Ullman, as a guest, stood up to him in defense of her network. How serious has he been in his shots at Fox?

“There has to be a basis to kid them. That’s the nature of comedy.”

But he conceded that he underestimated the staying power of the young network, which announced two weeks ago that it will expand to five nights of programming later this year.

“I just assumed there was not room for a viable fourth commercial network,” he said. “I’m really surprised. I guess it’s a going concern. Wouldn’t you guess there is money coming back?”

In fact, Letterman said, he’s amazed by the new face of TV, the flood of channels: “I mean, I could never have invested a nickel in the rerun life of ‘Mr. Ed’ in 1990. But there it is, and it gets an audience. I’m just saying how dumb I am about these things and how stunned I am.

“I think it has to do with people being very smart about marketing and realizing that television can produce far more money than anybody ever guessed.”

Television has definitely changed since Letterman--who’s never had a guest host--introduced “Late Night” on Feb. 2, 1982. Letterman himself has been a big part of the change, but late-night TV took on another distinctly new look in the last year with the arrival of two major challengers to him and Carson--Arsenio Hall and Pat Sajak.

What does he think of the new competition?

“I’ve seen a little of each and I think they’re both good shows. I don’t know exactly why people would choose not to watch the Sajak show. I think he does a nice job. And I think Arsenio does a nice job. I mean, it’s a big hit.

“I guess when they both came on the air, it seemed like, of the two, maybe Sajak would have a better chance just because he was with a network, CBS, and would have a better lineup of affiliates, and follow the local news. It just seemed that was gonna be more viable than another syndicated talk show (Hall’s), but the opposite has happened.”

And what about the reported rift between him and Hall?

“I’ve heard that he thinks that I don’t care for him,” Letterman said. “I assume that he doesn’t really believe that because we don’t even know each other.”

Then why the talk?

“I don’t know. As I understood it, I think he was under the impression that we didn’t want him on our show. And I think, in talking to our producer, there was a date for him to be on the show, and the producer felt it was too close to the beginning of his show. And it was just a matter of--well, he’s got his own show. But I don’t think he dislikes me. I certainly don’t dislike him. I mean, I really don’t know him.”

As a spectacularly inventive, intelligent comedian who still seems to speak for the TV generation--and mirror its skepticism about TV itself--Letterman has maintained a remarkable level of quality. His clout is such that NBC is using tonight’s anniversary special to kick off the Nielsen ratings firm’s key February “sweeps” period.

But there’s always the concern of maintaining a close relationship with one’s audience, and Letterman said:

“There was a time, the first three or four years of the show, when we were described as a cult show, as a real college kind of show. And in those days, I was grateful for any audience. But I thought to myself, ‘If this is true, how am I gonna feel when I’m in my 40s, doing a show for 18-year-old kids who are sneakin’ beer into the dorm?’ Ya know? And I guess, more importantly, how are they gonna feel about me? But I don’t think you can plot. I don’t think you can predict what you’re gonna be.

“I think you just have to sort of evolve and grow the way you would if you were runnin’ a hardware store. And people will either keep comin’ in to buy wrenches, or they won’t. Ya know?”

But there are, Letterman thinks, important changes in his show from its early years.

“Yeah. I think what we’ve learned is that for us, the simpler ideas work better than the overblown ideas. For example, we called my mother to place a Super Bowl bet with her. Now, to me, that idea has more appeal now than it probably would have had the first year (of the show). To me, it just seems more pure, more genuine.

“Let’s do smaller ideas and get bigger results, as opposed to a big idea that may not work. There’s not much on TV that’s gonna surprise people. You tell me something that people haven’t seen on television.”