After a Year of ‘Late Show,’ Snyder Isn’t Quite Through Talking

It was just after 10:30 p.m., and Tom Snyder wasn’t finished talking.

Emerging from an elevator on the ground floor of CBS Television City, the gangly broadcaster strode down the hall still wearing makeup from “The Late Late Show,” which he had wrapped on live television minutes earlier.

His destination was a closet-sized radio studio in the west end of the building, where he would pour listeners a 20-minute nightcap of more talk.

“I’m the phantom of CBS,” he joked, his footsteps echoing in the nearly desolate corridor.

Certainly few broadcasters work the graveyard shift as diligently as the 60-year-old Snyder. But the past year has been rougher than perhaps he or anyone else at the network imagined.

“The Late Late Show”--Snyder’s first foray into network TV since the 1982 end of NBC’s gabfest “Tomorrow”--was viewed upon its debut last Jan. 9 as an unlikely comeback and a risky bet. Observers wondered whether a start-up talk show hosted by a white-haired grandfather would seize the attention of college kids, who make up a sizable portion of the late-night audience.

The result so far has been mixed. The show (which airs on a tape delay at 12:35 a.m. weeknights on KCBS-TV Channel 2) has scored some memorable interviews and brought a unique talk/call-in format to network TV.

But reviews have been lukewarm and viewership weak. Nationwide ratings for “The Late Late Show” have lagged behind those of its principal competitor, NBC’s “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” (The latter, ironically, occupies the same programming slot that Snyder pioneered with “Tomorrow.”)

To make matters worse, erstwhile late-night king David Letterman--a longtime Snyder fan whose company Worldwide Pants Inc. produces his show--has struggled in his own ratings battle with NBC’s “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.”

For the record, CBS sources give Snyder’s program a vote of confidence. “In only a year, ‘The Late Late Show’ has become a valuable, successful part of the network’s programming lineup,” said John Pike, CBS senior vice president of late-night programming, adding that he expects the show to continue “for a long time to come.”

Snyder sounds a more philosophical note.

“We always wish [the ratings] were better,” he said. “But let’s face it: We play at a unique time period, 12:30 to 1:30 in the morning.

“When I did ‘Tomorrow’ for NBC we ran till 2 o’clock and they kept trying to find ways to make more people watch after 1:30 and I said, ‘No matter what you do, people are going to bed. You can’t fight that.’ ”

But there may be another explanation. Even Snyder admits that the new show has not been nearly as controversial as “Tomorrow.” Back then, his prickly, opinionated interviews with Charles Manson, the Watergate defendants and others earned him praise, scorn and (by way of Dan Aykroyd on “Saturday Night Live”) parody.

By contrast, “The Late Late Show” features the host chatting amiably with celebrities, journalists and callers from around the country. Early plans to feature breaking news stories were scratched, Snyder said, “because there was nothing compelling happening frequently enough to justify” such segments. Recent guests have included actors Maureen O’Hara, Steven Weber and Martin Mull.

Gone, too, is the host’s defensive and truculent persona--at least until a reporter presses him on the low ratings and one critic’s charge that he is too easy on guests.

“This is not ’60 Minutes,’ this is not ‘Nightline,’ ” Snyder says impatiently over dinner at a favorite restaurant several hours before air time. “I don’t purport to be a newsman. I used to do that for a living, but I have gone on to talk shows.”

But if time may have mellowed Snyder, it hasn’t dimmed his passion for broadcasting. A late riser, he often spends afternoons tooling around town in his black Cadillac, listening to Dennis Prager (a favorite guest) and other local talk-radio hosts.

The divorced father of a grown daughter, Snyder lives in Beverly Hills and has been dating the same woman for more than 10 years. He almost never attends parties or benefits, according to a CBS publicist, and so zealously shields his privacy that he once complained to a local TV station after it aired a picture of his home.

He typically arrives at the studio around 5 p.m. and eats dinner with the show’s staff. This is when he collects the humorous anecdotes that often form the basis of his five-minute opening monologue every night. (The segment’s kicker--”Sit back and watch the pictures as they fly through the air”--is a holdover from the “Tomorrow” days.)

He then spends about 90 minutes going over notes for that night’s guests. The walls of the staff’s “war room”--a large conference room amid an office suite--is covered with index cards representing possible future guests. But Snyder claims that he doesn’t get involved with such details.

“If it were up to me, I’d do a lot of [shows on] cooking, hobbies and broadcasters, because I enjoy those things,” he said. “But [the staff is] there during the day and they have access to a lot of information, and I depend upon them to put good shows together.”

By shortly after 9 p.m., he is joking with crew members in the control room and the adjoining “green room,” where guests await their interviews. The show broadcasts at 9:35, so it can air live on the East Coast and in the Midwest. During the show, Snyder forgoes cue cards in favor of glancing at a monitor containing key phrases and topics.

Sometimes this spontaneous approach can yield impressive results. Snyder cites interviews with singer Frank Sinatra Jr., Barbara Walters and producer Robert Evans as among his favorites. Callers on the toll-free phone lines can “really add something to the program,” Snyder says.

But other interviews have been notably devoid of sizzle, including the first of two talks last year with Letterman. Snyder knit his brow in obvious frustration as his patron and boss parried every question with a wisecrack.

Snyder says the interview failed because it was conducted via satellite.

“Letterman decided that night that he was going to play comedian and not interview,” he says. “The reason I couldn’t turn it around was I didn’t have him in the room with me.”

The pair remain friendly if not close, according to Snyder. They compare notes in biweekly phone calls but seldom see each other.

“Through the years he’s done stuff,” Snyder says. “One time a box arrived at the house from Dave and [inside] was a table lamp, just an ordinary table lamp, with a note: ‘I hope you love it as much as I do, Dave.’ ”

They have much in common. Snyder, like Letterman, is a native Midwesterner who slowly worked his way up from gigs at obscure TV stations in third-tier markets.

But as a tired Snyder knocks off his radio show--leaning into the microphone, head in hand, checking the clock every couple minutes with the approach of 11 p.m.--one wonders how much longer he can keep talking.

“That’s a very good question,” he says. “I don’t think [“The Late Late Show”] is a 10-year run.” He notes that his CBS contract runs until September, with options until 2000.

“There’s a lot of stuff I want to do in my life which is not about television. I mean, as much as I enjoy it. . . .” His voice trails off.

“Let’s face it, none of us are getting any younger,” he says.

* “The Late Late Show” airs at 12:35 a.m. Monday-Friday on KCBS-TV Channel 2.