David Letterman doesn’t like to be the subject of interviews, but he did this one recently with Zach Baron of GQ magazine and I found it fascinating.
Baron didn’t ask the same old questions (e.g. “Who was your favorite guest?”), but rather got Letterman to open up and share stories I’d never heard before — including one about his father and a radio station I used to do freelance work for.
Letterman also talks about how he was rarely able to get into interesting conversations with guests because his producers always talked to them first to find out which topics they’d like to cover on the show — and whatever project they were promoting at the time. Interestingly, I’m pretty sure Letterman agreed to this GQ interview because he has something to promote, a new channel available on Samsung TVs full of material from his CBS show. But, in typical Letterman style, he has no idea what that involves or how you can access it.
I happen to have a Samsung TV, so I went looking for the Letterman content.
It took me a full ten minutes to figure out how to find it because there’s no mention of it on the main menu. It turns out the TV comes with a slew of FAST (Free Advertiser Supported Television, which we used to call “television”) channels, just like Tubi and PlutoTV. Under the comedy tab, alongside channels devoted to reruns of “SNL,” Conan O’Brien’s show, and such hilarious classics as “Alf” and “Who’s The Boss,” I found the Letterman stream.
Like the others, it does not contain on-demand content. Rather, they are streams with one element after another which viewers can jump into at any time. But if you miss the beginning of one, I guess you have to wait until it comes around again. Again, this is what television was like for about 75 years.
I found the process a pain in the ass, and can’t imagine why I’d ever want to watch anything on the Samsung platform when I can see old clips of Letterman, Conan, “ALF” or so many other things on YouTube, which has a much-easier-to-navigate interface. In fact, that’s where I found the GQ video…