End of an era. At a taping of the Late Show today, David Letterman announced he’ll be retiring in 2015. The man is 66 and has been at CBS for 32 years, but still: pretty surprising stuff. Here’s the announcement from Letterman’s representative:
David Letterman, during a taping of tonight’s Late Show, said that he informed Leslie Moonves, President and CEO of CBS Corporation, that he will step down as the host of the show in 2015, which is when his current contract expires.
“The man who owns this network, Leslie Moonves, he and I have had a relationship of years and years and years, and we have had this conversation in the past, and we agreed that we would work together on this circumstance and the timing of this circumstance. And I phoned just before the program, and I said “Leslie, it’s been great, you’ve been great, and the network has been great, but I’m retiring,” said Letterman.
“I just want to reiterate my thanks for the support from the network, all the people who have worked there, all the people in the theater, all the people on the staff, everybody at home, thank you very much. What this means now, is that Paul and I can be married.”
“We don’t have the timetable for this precisely down — I think it will be at least a year or so, but sometime in the not too distant future, 2015 for the love of God, in fact, Paul and I will be wrapping up,” he added, to a standing ovation from the audience in the Ed Sullivan Theater.
Who should replace him? Ferguson? Handler? Stewart? Louie? … Conan?
Holy shit, Conan at CBS. That’d be wild.
[H/T: EW]