By Josef Adalian
March 5, 2003
For the first time since he took over as host of CBS' "The Late Late Show" in 1999, Kilborn's gabber will move outside its Los Angeles studio for a week of episodes. The show will originate from New Orleans the week of March 31-April 4, smack dab in the middle of the network's coverage of the NCAA tourney and right before the start of the Final Four.
Not-so-coincidentally, the Final Four takes place in the Big Easy this year.
Latenight gabfests have been studio-bound in recent years, with producers largely figuring the extra coin needed for traveling a show doesn't produce enough of a ratings bump. But CBS has found a way to make the numbers work: Get Coke to foot a large chunk of the deal to broadcast from Generations Hall.
In return for sponsoring "The Late Late Show" during its week down south, the soft drink giant will get a mention during the show's opening titles and will also have a presence on its set. There will also be at least one nightly Coke-themed segment, such as the "Coca-Cola Basketball Shootout."
What's more, Kilborn is at the center of Coke's nationwide NCAA promo push, which will include supermarket displays featuring Coke and Kilborn; commercials featuring the yakker; and a Kilborn presence on the soda-maker's NCAA Web site, cokemadness.com.
CBS isn't giving out details, but industry insiders said most of the nearly $1 million it takes to put a show on the road will be covered by Coca-Cola.
"Coke's support is making this happen," said CBS marketing guru George Schweitzer. "Craig is perfect for this. He's a former college basketball player and he hosted on ESPN. It's a very good advertising platform for Coke."
Coke is a top sponsor of CBS' NCAA tourney coverage, so there was already a relationship in place to exploit.
"Late Late Show" exec producer Todd Yasui said the folks at Coke have not demanded any sweeping concession in exchange for the sponsorship.
"They've actually been really cool and worked well with us in using Coke in an oraganic way to the show," Yasui said. "You won't have Craig doing anything that looks like he's being too much of a huckster."
Yasui said both the gabber and Coke stand to gain from the partnership.
"We get to take the show to a higher level, and they get to reach a really young, affluent audience."
As for Kilborn, he's just happy to be headed for New Orleans for a week.
"Finally, 16 years of banjo lessons are going to pay off bigtime," he said.
