UNITED STATES—Talk about a double whammy in the talk show arena. Why? In literally one day, news broke about not one, but TWO Daytime Talk Shows that will be no more very soon. On Monday, February 2, news was announced that the talk show “Sherri” had been cancelled after four seasons. Yes, Sherri Shepherd’s talk show will soon be no more, and I find that disappointing because it seems like everyone watches, at least the people I know.
That wasn’t the only news because on that same day it was announced that “The Kelly Clarkson Show” is done after 7 seasons. Clarkson has decided to end her run on daytime TV to spend more time with her family. Someone was saying that only leaves a handful of talk shows left and I started to scratch my head: which ones.
I was reminded that Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson has a talk show, and actress Drew Barrymore also has a talk show still. Rumors have it one of those shows might not be around too much longer either. Talk shows are nowhere near where they used to be almost 30 years ago. You had actual talk shows where the host talked about issues that the public wanted to hear about. That is not the case anymore.
A vast majority of the talk shows today are all about some celebrity talking about things they want to chat about, and then they have guests usually celebrities talking about or promoting their projects. Sorry, not sorry, but that just is not as entertaining as it used to be. I can talk about all the shows of the past which included Sally Jesse Raphael, The Jenny Jones Show, Maury Povich, Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake, Phil Donahue, Oprah and so many more that tackled the hard-hitting topics.
You watched those talk shows because you wanted to see what would be talked about for the day and specifically, how the temperature would be tested as it relates to those topics. A lot of the talk show hosts today don’t push the envelope, they don’t ask the hard-hitting questions, they like to keep things lite and that works for some people, but others not so much.
If we want to be honest, talk shows are dying because of podcasts. The pandemic hit and everybody and their momma got bored and started doing podcasts, and you know what these people do on these podcasts: they interview people. So, it’s like a talk show without a live audience and it’s not always televised live. However, that is changing a bit with some podcasts that are actually airing live as the ‘chaos’ ensues.
My only question is if the talk shows cease to exist on daytime TV, what are the networks going to fill those slots with. I mean they got rid of a vast majority of all the soap operas. We only have 4 still airing on national airwaves with another solely on a streaming service. Would it be interesting to see some return?
Yes, but it raises the question of rather it’s cost-effective to do so, and I just don’t see it after more than a decade plus of a vast majority of them vanishing. Talk shows were always great because they are apparently cheap to produce, but not everyone has the charisma and skill to be a talk show host. If this week told us anything, it’s having a talk show is no guaranteed thing. You are here today and gone tomorrow.
