11th-Hour Letterman Offers : Television: NBC reportedly caved in to his demand for the 11:30 time slot, but the talk show host rejected it.

Did NBC reject talk show host David Letterman or did Letterman reject NBC?

That may become the next big battle in the long-running television talk show wars.

Sources close to the talks insisted on Wednesday that NBC, in a last-ditch move, offered Letterman the coveted “Tonight Show” slot held by Jay Leno just before Letterman accepted CBS’ offer. Letterman rejected the offer, those sources say, because it did not meet all the financial terms he sought, and because “he wanted to begin a new phase of his life.”

NBC executives, speaking on condition of anonymity, adamantly deny that any such offer was made. They insist that they rejected Letterman.

The different accounts point to the through-the-looking-glass atmosphere of the television business, and how opposing parties can both lay claim to victory in the absence of facts.

Indeed, the tale illustrates the high-stakes gamble at work in NBC’s efforts to salvage its late-night franchise, one of the most profitable in television.

It also reveals how network executives were under intense pressure to come up with a solution, in the face of a Friday deadline, to match or exceed Letterman’s $14-million-a-year offer from CBS. And it clearly shows the hard-ball tactics that Letterman was willing to employ to achieve his goal of becoming “the Johnny Carson of CBS.”

NBC is expected to announce today that it was unable to come to an agreement with Letterman and that the late-night talk show host has accepted an offer from CBS to put him on opposite Leno at 11:30 p.m., possibly as early as this summer when his contract expires. The network is talking to “Saturday Night Live” regular Dana Carvey as a possible replacement.

CBS is expected to confirm details of the Letterman deal at a New York press conference. Creative Artists Agency, which represents Letterman, declined comment on Wednesday.

According to people familiar with the last-minute negotiations, NBC executives over the weekend proposed a plan whereby Letterman would be guaranteed the 11:30 p.m. slot starting in June, 1994, a year after his current contract expires.

That, in turn, NBC executives believed, would have induced Leno to quit.

As a result, NBC would not have had to pay a $10-million penalty fee to Leno for breach of his contract. Moreover, the network would have been able to then immediately move Letterman to 11:30 p.m., since Leno would have quit the show.

NBC executives denied Wednesday that they ever intended to dump Leno and insisted that no offer or presentation of the sort was made to Letterman’s representatives. However, NBC executives acknowledged that there were many different “scenarios” discussed within the company. They would not say whether those included shifting Letterman to 11:30 p.m.

NBC’s negotiations were headed by John Agoglia, a top executive at the network’s Burbank-based program department. Agoglia was in frequent consultation with NBC President Robert C. Wright and programming chief Warren Littlefield.

When NBC executives gathered in Boca Raton, Fla., last week with senior managers from the company, the NBC executives found themselves holed up in conference rooms trying to figure out if there was a way to hold onto both stars.

“Hundreds of scenarios were discussed,” said one of the participants.

Added another NBC executive with an air of annoyance: “Bob (Wright) wanted a win-win situation.”

The sticking point had been--as it had been from the very beginning--Letterman’s unmoving position that he wanted the 11:30 slot. Although it is only an hour earlier, there are many more viewers available at that hour than at the 12:30 a.m. slot Letterman has filled for the last 10 years on NBC.