Even though Bergeron's book I'm Hosting as Fast as I Can has been out for a while, I don't think we've ever talked about a brief chapter in which he goes into some detail about the negotiations to have him host The Price Is Right after Barker's retirement. Keeping in mind that it's told from his perspective, it's still pretty interesting.
The way he tells it, it was pretty much his job to turn down. In fact he says he turned it down several times. He says that while there were no contractual conflicts between the CBS show and his two ABC prime time gigs (that itself a bit of a surprise), his biggest issue was the additional time it would take away from his family, which was (and probably still is) based on the East Coast. He says that he brought up the idea of relocating the show to New York, mostly as a way of getting out of the negotiations, but to his surprise, they were willing to make that accommodation. He says what finally killed it is that he wanted to sign only a one-year deal, and he believes that the producers wanted somebody willing to sign a longer-term contract.
He mentions that in the middle of his negotiations he heard the rumors that they were courting Rosie O'Donnell, though he doesn't mention that Rosie herself was talking about relocating the show to NYC. And because he is who he is, he had nothing but nice things to say about both Barker and Carey.
