Clinton Said to Want TV Talk Show

Former President Bill Clinton met with NBC executives Wednesday in Los Angeles to discuss hosting his own talk show, according to several television sources.

Although the talks are only preliminary, one source said Clinton’s interest was serious and said he was demanding a fee of $50 million a year and had aspirations “of becoming the next Oprah Winfrey.”

NBC officials would not comment Wednesday. And Clinton’s office in New York did not respond to an inquiry about the prospective talk show.

Clinton is in Los Angeles this week for a Democratic fund-raiser, according to one person who will be attending.

Television industry sources say chances are slim that Clinton would commit to such a plan once he understands the demands of the job. The 55-year-old former president has told some Hollywood executives who have asked about a potential TV career that the rumors are untrue.

Television executives doubted that Clinton would sign up for a demanding regimen of daily tapings for 39 weeks that such a show would require.

Certainly, there is no precedent for such a TV deal with a former president. Richard Nixon stirred controversy in 1975 when talk show host David Frost paid him $600,000 for a series of interviews.

Most presidents, after leaving the White House, typically sit on corporate boards, take up humanitarian and charitable causes, write books, make speeches and work on their libraries.

Some experts said Clinton also would risk his status as a world statesman by aligning himself so closely with the issues common to afternoon or late-night talk shows such as adultery, rape, child abuse and teen pregnancy.

“The price he could pay is so much higher than the potential payoff,” said Robert Thompson, a professor of media and pop culture at Syracuse University. “Clinton is obsessed with his legacy, and a talk show is not the best way to erase Monica Lewinsky and the impeachment and reposition himself in high school history books for his positive achievements. How does he maintain his dignity if he cashes in on his ‘Animal House’ presidency?”

There was also speculation in TV circles this week that Clinton was meeting with CBS. But Leslie Moonves, chief executive of CBS Television, said his company has had no meeting with the former president and called the idea of a Clinton talk show ridiculous. “Why would he do it?” asked Moonves, who had close ties to the Clinton White House.

A CBS division syndicates “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” But Winfrey plans to quit her top-rated talk show in 2006 after 20 years.

Recently, CBS has been looking for a political star to bring to the small screen. The company has pursued former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who declined the offer, according to sources.

Clinton has been making a handsome living since leaving the White House. The former president is estimated to be pulling in as much as $15 million a year from speeches that pay $125,000 to $300,000 apiece. That is on top of his $12-million book deal with Alfred A. Knopf, which is the largest advance in history.

Yet a top-rated talk show would be much more lucrative. Winfrey has built a billion-dollar publishing and television empire on the back of her talk show, which generates $300 million in revenue each year. CBS’s King World division pays her more than $125 million a year to host the show and spends an estimated $40 million to produce it.

But TV executives have reservations about whether a Clinton show would attract and sustain a large audience. Professor Thompson said Clinton could turn a TV career to his advantage by using his telegenic skills to interview world leaders and take on complex topics such as Middle East peace and oil dependency.

Yet television sources say Clinton is not interested in political topics because of potential conflicts of interest as the spouse of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

If Clinton proceeds with his plans for a talk show, it probably would be produced by his close friends Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and Harry Thomason, sources said. The husband and wife team are playing a role in pitching Clinton’s show to the networks. The Thomasons are best-known as the executive producers of the 1980s CBS hit “Designing Women,” but their production company, Mozark Productions, has had several other prime-time series, including “Evening Shade” and “Hearts Afire.”

The Thomasons have known Clinton since he was governor of Arkansas and have served as advisors at various times during his campaigns and his presidency. The couple directed a 14-minute biographical sketch that introduced Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention in New York.

They are working on a movie documentary based on Joe Conason and Gene Lyons’ book, “The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton.”

One rumor circulating Hollywood last week was that Clinton was a candidate to replace CBS news anchor Bryant Gumbel. But one network source said that job wouldn’t pay enough.