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A New Years Eve Countdown to 2009 with Carson Daly and David Friedman
by Troy Rogers
 Given the recent announcement that Elton John will be performing live by satellite on NBC's fifth annual New Year's Eve with Carson Daly, we're wondering how many people will be still standing better than they ever did come 12:01am in Times Square. Although Carson Daly is now a veteran on the late night television airwaves, with his own show Late Night With Carson Daly, the former host of MTV's TRL also moonlights as the emcee of NBC's annual New Year's eve celebration. Unlike last year, however, New Year's Eve with Carson Daly will air from 10:00 - 11:00pm before Daly and crew take a break in Times Square and return to the airwaves at 11:35pm to countdown the New Year. Joining Daly for the broadcast will be musical guests Kate Perry and T.I. plus Today co-anchor Amy Robach and Luke Russert, son of the late, great Meet the Press anchor, Tim Russert.
To gear up for the impending annual celebration in Times Square, The Deadbolt continued the tradition of catching up with Carson Daly and producer David Friedman to find out what they have planned to usher in 2009 on NBC.
THE DEADBOLT: With the economy the way it is, do you expect the same turnout as last year? Or do you think people are going to be staying home more?
CARSON DALY: I don’t know. The Dow was up 220 today, so I’m hopeful. You know what’s funny? It’s hard to say. I don’t think there’ll be as many people traveling, obviously, in the holidays. If they do, New York I think, is the one vacation that they might still keep on their calendar. Although, oddly enough, I think there’s a lot of New Yorkers that will not be traveling, so they could sort of offset some of the physical bodies that are in Times Square that night. It’s hard to say. But, I mean, whether it’s 400,000 or 600,000 there’s a tremendous amount of people that night.
THE DEADBOLT: You guys just mentioned that T.I. was added. In the release it said 50 Cent is going to be there. Is he still there?
 DAVID FRIEDMAN: No, he had scheduling problems. unfortunately because - 50 has been on our late night show for many, many years and Carson and 50 are really close. And we were thrilled to have him, but scheduling conflicts came up and so he had to drop out, unfortunately. But like you mentioned, we were able to add a couple names and we’re in good shape. And 50’s in good shape, too. He’s doing other things. But yeah, for now he’s not involved.
THE DEADBOLT: After the show wraps, what will you be getting up to?
DALY: You know, that’s funny, we’re working on this right now. Every year we do a little wrap thing. It’s just freezing in Times Square. I mean, by the time 12:30am rolls around and we’ve all exhaled, the back scenes behind all of this is that - we’re a very small production group. You know, a lot of us come from the Late Night show. There’s a lot of sort of double duty going on between shooting both the New Year’s Eve show and the Late Night show.
So we have a small staff and a small crew, and everybody multitasks, to say the least. And it’s something that David and I both take a tremendous amount of pride in. So rather than running off to some sort of celebrity B.S. event, it’s my main focus - and Dave’s too - to try and find a little bar or a little place where we can get these guys that built our set and the producers, and the writers and everybody that’s worked so hard over the last six months.
I mean, this is really like almost a full year-round production for us given the numbers of [people involved] - I mean, you’ll see in the credits it’s over in three seconds. So we’ll do something probably small and intimate, and hopefully walking distance from Times Square and just kind of thank the staff for a great night.
 FRIEDMAN: And then keep in mind we - I think maybe a part of your question about what’s next - I mean, keep in mind that because we have the Late Night show year-round we literally get right on a plane and we’re back on the air on the late night show that Monday evening. And a lot of what we’ll do on the New Year’s show, and perhaps in rehearsal, and behind the scenes stuff - we’ll be shooting a lot of that stuff and put a piece together for our first night back on the air on the Late Night show come Monday. So there’s no - not that - and we’re not complaining. We love producing and we love being on TV and working. But there’s no - after that, there’s no vacation. We go right back to the Late Night show and we’re on the air. And it’s a grind and we like it. And the same producers and writers that come with us to do New Year’s will go right back to LA and do the late night show.
THE DEADBOLT: You get right back into planning next year right away?
FRIEDMAN: Well, the night of. I mean, hopefully, thanks to the network and to Rick Ludwin, and Nick Bernstein and the executives at the network, last year right at 12:30am or 1:00am - well, first Carson and I sit down and we [get] together alone and we just say, "What just happened? What did we like? What didn’t we like?" And then we go to the party and that’s where we hopefully hear from [others] - we have a drink with Rick and Nick and we hope that they say, "Hey, good job, and let’s talk about next year." And last year, literally that night, was when they said, "Hey, you know, how about next year? And hey, maybe we can do it into prime." We’d love to expand. And that was literally January 1 at 1:30 am. So, you know, we hope that that happens every year.
-- Troy Rogers
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