TELEVISION - Sept. 1, 1992

Letterman on the Loose?: NBC on Monday denied a report in Advertising Age that David Letterman has decided to leave the network when his contract expires next spring. The trade magazine story quoted unidentified TV executives who said Letterman will begin negotiating with other networks and syndicators sometime after Labor Day to take his late-night program elsewhere. “Any good reporter can see that these are all third-party, anonymous sources,” said NBC spokeswoman Sue Binford, adding that network negotiations with Letterman are ongoing. A frustrated source close to Letterman also firmly denied the story, saying, “There have been stories like this for a year now, every two weeks. I don’t know why anyone is amazed by them. They’re stories. They’re wrong.”