Tom Snyder Gets His Old Time Slot Back--but on CBS : Television: He once followed Carson’s show on NBC; now he’ll follow the new king of late night, David Letterman.

Tom Snyder, whose talk show followed Johnny Carson’s on NBC for nine years, was tapped Tuesday to play the same role for the new king of late-night television, CBS’ David Letterman.

“This is truly incredible,” Snyder told a news conference here with Letterman by his side. “A year ago, this was no more in my mind than to jump off the Empire State Building.”

Snyder, 58, who currently hosts a talk show on the CNBC cable channel, will begin hosting “The Late Late Show With Tom Snyder” for CBS on weeknights at 12:35 a.m. in mid-December. The hourlong show will originate in Los Angeles and will be simulcast on the CBS radio network.

The time slot will be very familiar to Snyder. He hosted the “Tomorrow” series there on NBC from 1973 until 1982, when he was replaced by a young comedian by the name of David Letterman. Letterman remained in that slot until last year, when, miffed at losing out to Jay Leno in the competition to replace Carson as host of “The Tonight Show,” he departed for CBS and launched what is now the top-rated show in the late-night market.

Under terms of the deal that brought Letterman to CBS, his company will produce the new show, and he was instrumental in the selection of Snyder, who signed a four-year contract for undisclosed terms.

Letterman said Tuesday that he used to watch the “Tomorrow” show regularly while working in Indianapolis and has been a fan of Snyder’s ever since. “I’ve always found the man, first and foremost, to be entertaining,” Letterman said.

Asked whether Snyder’s age made him the right candidate to hold on to the young Letterman viewers who are prized by advertisers, Letterman said: “He’s just a guy who’s smart and very good at what he does. To me, I don’t care if he’s 100--and believe me, he’s close.”

Snyder, however, was not the first choice: The post-Letterman spot was turned down by Garry Shandling and Bob Costas.

Snyder’s primary competition will be Letterman’s replacement at NBC, Conan O’Brien--although the number of cities in which they go head-to-head at 12:35 will depend on how successful CBS is at persuading its affiliated stations to clear the Snyder show at that hour. Many stations balked at pushing back lucrative syndicated programming to accommodate the Letterman show last year and may be unwilling to do it again for Snyder--in which case his show would be scheduled in the wee hours of the morning.

CBS officials said they expected 70% of their affiliates to carry “The Late Late Show” initially, but they declined to specify how many plan to schedule it at 12:35 a.m.

The precise premiere date has not yet been set, but Snyder said CNBC has agreed to let him out of his contract early. He said the format will closely resemble what he has always done--one-on-one interviews--with an 800 phone line on which viewers can call in with questions.

Brash and breezy, with a distinctive laugh that has often been parodied, Snyder has had a relatively low profile in recent years. But he was once a major figure in U.S. broadcasting. He began his career in 1955 at a radio station in his hometown of Milwaukee and worked in local news for 18 years, including a stint as an anchor for the top-rated news department at KNBC-TV Channel 4 in Los Angeles from 1970 to 1973. He then took over “Tomorrow,” doubled for a time as an anchor at WNBC in New York and also hosted a prime-time newsmagazine for NBC in 1979-80.

After “Tomorrow,” Snyder returned to Los Angeles, working for a time at KABC-TV Channel 7 in 1986, then hosting a call-in radio show on ABC for five years and finally landing the CNBC job in early 1993.