How David Letterman Got Entangled In One Of ABC's Biggest Scandals

David Letterman spent more than two decades at CBS before eventually retiring from "The Late Show" in 2015, but 10 years into his tenure, he very nearly jumped ship for ABC. The situation prompted serious backlash, with Letterman ultimately turning down the offer. But, to this day, we're still impressed by his classy response. As a brief overview, back in 2002, ABC approached Letterman shortly before his CBS contract ended with an offer to move his show to their network instead. At the time, the comedian was reportedly frustrated with CBS' promotion of "The Late Show with David Letterman," particularly because his ratings were far behind NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," aka the show that replaced Letterman's when he initially moved to CBS. 

One of the chief reasons why the ABC debacle became such a big scandal was because "Nightline" was already in the timeslot that the network tentatively offered to Letterman, and far from being something that struggled to pull in ratings, it was incredibly successful. In fact, in 2002 alone, "Nightline" earned several major nominations, and won at that year's Peabody Awards. But, while speaking to The New York Times, an unnamed ABC exec claimed that because there were so many channels dedicated specifically to news, "The relevancy of 'Nightline' just is not there anymore." 

Rather than pretend the slight wasn't an insult to everyone who worked on the show, anchor Ted Koppel called it out in no uncertain terms. He clapped back on CNN's "Reliable Sources" with, "It is at best inappropriate and at worst malicious to describe what my colleagues and I are doing lacking relevance." Alongside turning down the offer, Letterman tried to smooth things over.

David Letterman has been accused of having a shady side in the past, but when it came to the ABC drama, he was clearly mortified, and went above and beyond to make amends. The comedian told ABC the only way he'd even consider making the move was if they could confirm they'd planned for "Nightline" to be shifted to a later timeslot even if he wasn't in talks with them. However, after deciding to stay at CBS after all, he also did an interview with Ted Koppel for "Nightline Up Close" midway through taping his own show, even letting his audience know he was doing so. 

During their chat Koppel, who'd previously appeared on "The Late Show with David Letterman" and been friendly with the host, asked whether someone of Letterman's stature could really be susceptible to ABC's offers, "Just because they woo you," (via Entertainment Weekly). The late-night legend admitted that that was exactly what happened (considering Letterman doesn't consider himself a star that was pretty on-brand). The interview took a touching turn when Koppel asked about his guest's first broadcast post-9/11 and if he'd watched it back afterwards. 

In response to Letterman acknowledging that he hadn't (but also likely in relation to everything that had happened with the whole ABC debacle), Koppel advised the host, "You're very tough on yourself. I mean, you really are," (via YouTube). Letterman seemed emotional at that, and turned downright bashful as Koppel continued, "You seem to be a very nice man." The TV personality gushed, "Well, thank you, Ted, and I can say the same for you." ABC courting Letterman became one of the network's biggest scandals, so we take our hats off to both sides for how it was handled.