From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business.

Over time, the star of the show became the dominant power.

And I figured out very early that I was going to be a lot safer with an ensemble drama.

Because if somebody really turned out to be a jerk, you could sit them down.

Stephen Botchko, the writer-producer behind record-breaking Emmy winner's Hill Street

Blues, L.A. Law, and NYPD Blue, dealt with more than a few jerks in his long career,

and he isn't afraid to tell those tales in his memoir, Truth is a Total Defense.

For Memorial Day weekend, we're revisiting our conversation with Bocchko.

He recounts battles big and small, including a legal brawl with Rupert Murdoch, and the firing of an actor with very particular bathroom habits.

But first on the news banter, Colbert and Maddow, romp in the Trump era.

Stay tuned. It's the business from KCRW.

I am joined by my partner in banter, Matt Bellany, of the Hollywood reporter.

Hello, Matt.

Hi there.

So we have seen quite the reversal of fortune lately in terms of a couple of key parts of the TV landscape. And this is

seemingly due to the political environment in this country with the constant news about Donald Trump.

Yeah. I mean, if you look at the late night television landscape, we just got word that

Stephen Colbert has beaten Jimmy Fallon at the Tonight Show in total

viewers for the 2016-2017 season, which is a pretty remarkable reversal of fortune, considering,

you know, it wasn't long ago that people were talking about Colbert getting canceled because he just

wasn't clicking and wasn't working, and this election

has completely reinvigorated him.

...