text: History In the wake of his NBC morning show being cancelled in October 1980 after 18 weeks on the air, David Letterman was still held in high enough regard by the network brass, especially NBC president Fred Silverman, that upon hearing the 33-year-old comedian was being courted by a first-run syndication company, NBC gave him a US$20,000 per week ($1,000,000 for a year) deal to sit out a year and guest-host The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on multiple occasions. Earlier that year in May, after significant acrimony, NBC and Carson had reached an agreement on a new contract, which—among other concessions to Carson—granted the powerful and influential host the control over the time slot immediately following The Tonight Show.
  From late fall 1980 until the end of 1981, in addition to guest-hosting 22 episodes of the Tonight Show, as outlined in his one-year holding deal with NBC, Letterman also appeared five times as Carson's guest on the highly rated program as the network groomed the 34-year-old for a new project.
  Finally, on November9, 1981, NBC and Carson's production company Carson Productions (as well as Letterman's own newly established production company Space Age Meats Productions, forerunner to today's Worldwide Pants Incorporated) announced the creation of Late Night with David Letterman, set to premiere in early 1982 in the 12:30 a.m. time slot Monday through Thursday, with occasional specials every few Fridays, all aimed at young men. The network wanted to capitalize on catering to young males, feeling that there was very little late-night programming for that demographic. The newly announced show thus displaced the Tomorrow Coast to Coast program hosted by Tom Snyder from the 12:30 slot. NBC initially offered Snyder to move his show back an hour, but Snyder, already unhappy with being forced to adopt changes to Tomorrow that he detested, refused and ended the show instead. The final first-run Tomorrow episode aired on December17, 1981.