David Michael Letterman, popularly known as David Letterman, is an American television host who has served the longest period hosting a late night talk show in the history of American television. Starting with the first episode of ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ on February 1, 1982 on NBC, he had hosted a late night television talk show for 33 years, until 2015. David Letterman was ranked 45th on the TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time. Also a comedian and television and film producer, he opened his own company, Worldwide Pants, that produced some of his shows and several prime-time comedies like ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ and ‘The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson’. Known for his “disrespectful” sense of humor, Letterman left NBC when the channel chose Jay Leno to replace Johnny Carson instead of him as the host of ‘The Tonight Show’. He then joined CBS and started hosting ‘The Late Show with David Letterman’ which directly competed for viewership with ‘The Tonight Show with Jay Leno’. In 2015, he announced his plans to retire from the show. A few years later, he returned in a new talk show series, which was premiered on Netflix in January 2018.