Former President Bill Clinton has met with NBC executives in Los Angeles to discuss hosting his own talk show, a Clinton spokeswoman confirmed Thursday.
Julia Payne told United Press International that the former president met with NBC executives Wednesday.
"President Clinton did not demand a talk show ... he has met many people over the past year concerning various projects including television ... he went to listen," Payne said of Wednesday's talks. "The president is gratified by the range of opportunities that have been presented to him."
NBC had no comment, NBC's Max Acker told UPI.
It's not the first time Clinton has had conversations with NBC. In December 2000, NBC's Shirley Powell said, "We love the idea of Bill Clinton on television, and we've had some initial conversations about it."
Clinton is in Los Angeles this week for a Democratic fund-raiser. The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that Clinton was demanding a fee of $50 million a year.
"There is no doubt that Bill Clinton is good on television, and he has the knowledge and gravitas to do a cable news program along the lines of Bill O'Reilly or Phil Donahue," Robert Thompson, director of the center for the study of popular television at the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University, told UPI. "But the question is, does he make a better guest than a host for a Jerry Springer program called 'I had sex with my intern while my wife was in the other room?'"
A post-presidential television talk show would be unprecedented. But it's bound to happen, because politics and television are so intertwined, Thompson said.
"There were rumors about television when Clinton was still in the White House and for a man at the age of 55 you realize that he still has time for show biz," Thompson said. "Even his detractors said he was good on TV, but that's the problem, he has detractors while people have a hard time hating Oprah."
According to Thompson, Clinton would fit easily in a cable news talk show where a political slant is expected and the conflict of interest of having Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as his wife, is obvious.
"Unless someone has been living in a cave, everyone knows the Clintons are married and are Democrats, so everyone knows about the conflict and political talk shows are partisan, so that could work," Thompson said.
"However, Clinton replacing Bryant Gumbel on CBS's "The Early Show," as has been rumored, would be problematic, because the former president is so clearly partisan and because of the credibility problem of his 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman' statement."
Television and radio talk shows are a big risk for media companies and would be, perhaps, a bigger risk for Clinton, Thompson said.
"There is no guarantee that having good skills on television can translate into being a good television host, as Susan Molinari proved when she left Congress and became a host on CBS's early morning news program a few years ago," Thompson said. "The same is true with (former New York Gov.) Mario Cuomo, who had a radio talk show that failed pretty quickly after he left the governor's office in 1995 -- the list of failed talk show hosts is endless."
According to Thompson, doing a partisan political talk show on cable is one thing, because cable segments the market and "one has to appeal to one segment and therefore another segment will hate you."
"On network television, the key is to offend no one and attract a mass audience and with Clinton's built-in hate factor that's a lot harder to do, although I guarantee for the first two weeks everyone would be watching, just to see what he would say," Thompson said. "Whether people would continue to tune in for another 37 weeks is unknown and whether anyone will pay him $50 million is even more uncertain."
While television salaries are high, $50 million a year is considered very high. Although Katie Couric is reported to have a five-year contract of $65 million for hosting NBC's "Today" for three hours a day, $50 million for an unknown quantity is something else, according to Thompson.
"Today," NBC's most lucrative program, reportedly generates $250 million a year for the network. "The O'Reilly Factor," on the Fox News Channel, had the largest audience of all the cable news shows, with an average of 2.1 million viewers, beating CNN's top-rated show, "Larry King Live," which reached an average of 1.3 million viewers for the first quarter of 2002.
Oprah Winfrey, who is paid $125 million a year for hosting her daytime syndicated talk show, has signed a contract extension until 2006. Her program reportedly rakes in $300 million a year in revenue.
"The economics is that there isn't the kind of money in cable that Clinton is supposedly asking for, so that puts him in an afternoon network talk show format talking about teen pregnancy, drug use, broken families and that brings up the question of his legacy," Thompson said.
Former presidents usually make speeches, write books, do good works, serve on corporate boards, build their presidential libraries and help shape their legacy.
"What happens to his legacy if the show fails?" radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said.
Since leaving office in 2001, Clinton has signed a $12 million advance for his memoir that will emphasize the White House years, which is scheduled to be published in hardcover by Knopf in 2003, and by Vintage Books in trade paperback in 2004. It's also estimated that he pulls in $15 million a year from speeches that he gives around the world.
"While his book publisher may love the fact that the most expensive writer in history could appear daily on television while he is promoting his book, the question is, where does Clinton put his past and the Monica Lewinsky factor?" asked Thompson.
"It worked for Oprah to talk about her past abuse and weight problems but does someone who was once the head of the free world do it too?" Thompson asked. "There's something not quite right about it, and I'm not sure it would work."
