Jason Zinoman, “Letterman: The Last Giant Of Late Night”

Here’s my conversation with Jason Zinoman about his book, “Letterman: The Last Giant Of Late Night.” Among the topics we discussed:

• Whether it was harder to convince David Letterman to sit down for interviews or his former showrunner/girlfriend Merrill Markoe to share her diary;
• Letterman’s three distinct creative eras at NBC, and why the CBS years were so different;
• Letterman’s withdrawal from his staff over the years, and then from the show;
• How Letterman began the era of no surprises on late night talk shows;
• The one word that described David Letterman’s mindset through most of his TV run;
• The contributions of director Hal Gurnee.

Listen to our conversation here.