“Tonight” show host Jay Leno will be celebrating Veteran’s Day with one of the country’s most famous war heroes.
Sen. John McCain is set to make his first post-election TV appearance on the “Tonight” show on Tuesday, according to NBC execs.
The Republican presidential candidate is a former Naval officer and prisoner of war in Vietnam, a title he used heavily while campaigning against now President-elect Barack Obama.
Insiders say McCain chose a talk show over a news show for his first post-election TV interview because he wanted a more lighthearted experience after his loss in a hard fought battle for the White House.
Sources close to McCain say his choice to appear on the “Tonight” show instead of David Letterman’s “Late Show” has its roots in the campaign. You’ll recall Letterman repeatedly skewered McCain for canceling a September guest shot. The politician eventually showed up and made amends with Letterman by saying he had “screwed up.”
FOUR MORE YEARS OF OLBERMANN
Like it or not, Keith Olbermann is staying on TV.
MSNBC just announced that Olbermann has agreed to continue hosting “Countdown” each weeknight for the next four years.
The verbose talk show host is the cable channel’s headlining prime-time star, and now he has secured his place at MSNBC for President-elect Obama’s entire first term.
Interestingly, just a couple of weeks ago Fox News Channel announced that Bill O’Reilly, whose show airs opposite Olbermann’s, had also agreed to a new four-year contract.
Olbermann is essentially the anti-O’Reilly having spent much of the election sharply criticizing John McCain and President Bush. In doing so the size of Olbermann’s audience has more than doubled, from an average of 776,000 in October 2007 to nearly 2.2 million this October, according to Nielsen Media Research.
In addition to hosting his own show, MSNBC said Olbermann would continue to play a major role in coverage of big news events.