The show debuted on August 30, 1993,[2] and was produced by Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants, and CBS Television Studios.

When David Letterman became available following a conflict with NBC, CBS was eager to lure him and offered him a three-year, $14 million per year contract,[10] doubling his Late Night salary.

[11] CBS' total cost for acquiring the show including renovations, negotiation rights paid to NBC, signing Letterman, announcer Bill Wendell, Shaffer, the writers and the band was over $140 million.

After Letterman was introduced on Late Show's very first episode, NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw accompanied him on stage and wished him "reasonably well".

[14] As part of a pre-arranged act, Brokaw then proceeded to retrieve a pair of cue cards while stating that "These last two jokes are the intellectual property of NBC!"

In his opening monologue, Letterman said "Legally, I can continue to call myself Dave"[15] but joked that he woke up that morning and next to him in bed was the head of a peacock (while the orchestra played the theme from The Godfather).

Likewise, the CBS network was hindered by a weak prime time lineup, along with several large- and major-market network affiliation switches in late 1994 relating to Fox's acquisition of CBS's National Football League rights, stunting the Late Show just as it was beginning to gain traction.

[21] In the second week after Letterman and O'Brien began their opposing broadcasts, viewer ratings for Tonight began to slip and Late Show was poised to beat Tonight for the first time in over ten years,[21][22] a fact pointed out by Letterman's guests on air (Howard Stern and Julia Roberts).

[26] Including his 11 years on NBC, Letterman is the longest tenured late-night talk show host, having surpassed Johnny Carson.

[31][35] Sheila Rogers, the producer responsible for booking guests on the show, worked for Letterman since his Late Night days.

[37] The show was taped at the Ed Sullivan Theater at the corner of Broadway and 53rd Street in midtown Manhattan during its entire run.

Letterman made use of the immediate neighborhood surrounding the theater for his show on occasion, closing off the portion of 53rd Street that goes past his studio for various stunts.

Nearby merchants gained fame after making frequent appearances on the program, including Rupert Jee, owner of the Hello Deli at 213 W. 53rd St., and Mujibur and Sirajul, Bengali immigrants who worked at a souvenir shop close to the studio.

The stage layout followed the same basic structure Letterman employed on Late Night: the house band appeared on the far left, followed by the performance area and then the interview set.

In May 2015, days before Letterman retired, Seth Stevenson described what it was like to attend a taping of Late Show: It felt almost regal to enter the Ed Sullivan Theater beneath a lit marquee on 53rd and Broadway instead of through some unmarked, dented metal door on an industrial block of Hell's Kitchen.

The theater for Late Show with David Letterman seats 450 people instead of 100, and its rococo balcony offers a glorious vista over the sprawling stage where the Beatles first performed in America.

Instead of bathing us in washed-out, piped-in music, or a half-hearted pop quintet, Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra rocked us with a wall of sound, including a horn section that blasted riffs clear to the theater rafters ...

This is a big, brassy venue with a live orchestra, instead of a cramped black-box studio with somebody's iPod plugged into ceiling speakers.

The announcer presented the names of that night's guests, as well as Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra, then introduced Letterman.

As with his previous shows, the copy for the open included non sequiturs about New York and Letterman, though the former would change after the September 11 attacks to simply "the greatest city in the world".

For an extended stretch of episodes, one of the models would be performing with several hula hoops, while the other would be wearing a metal suit and operating a grinding machine against her abdomen, a carry-over from their first appearance on the sketch, "Is This Anything?"

Letterman would then walk out on the show stage to perform his stand-up monologue, which occasionally began with a reference to something an audience member said to him during the pre-show question-and-answer session.

Letterman then chatted with the audience and Shaffer, sometimes relating an anecdote from his personal life, sometimes discussing his anticipation of a particular guest; a running gag may have been featured.

[42][43] Letterman read the Top Ten List at this point before turning to guest interviews with a celebrity, politician, or other public figure.

Musical guests included artists from David Bowie, U2, Neil Young, Coldplay to indie bands like Grizzly Bear, Gorillaz, MENEW, and Animal Collective.

In the latter part of the run, the admonishment to watch Craig Ferguson and James Corden was delivered by Alan Kalter, via voiceover.

[citation needed]Kennedy and his crew won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video for a Series" during the nearly four-month-long transition to HDTV.

Love was also the musical guest on May 7, 2007, performing "River Deep – Mountain High", while also appearing as a background choral singer on October 15, 2008.

[68] Paul Shaffer hosted January 19, 2005, when Letterman went to receive an award for his racing team's victory in the 2004 Indianapolis 500.

[70][circular reference] On March 20, 2007, Letterman fell ill less than an hour before the show started, and scheduled guest Adam Sandler took his place as host.