“The Kelly Clarkson Show’s” future in doubt

With personal problems and a daytime daypart bleeding viewers, she may call it a career

While the news is bubbling under the radar, Kelly Clarkson’s syndicated daytime talk show could be headed into its final season this fall. 

Tabloid gossip has been running rampant in the last few weeks regarding the American Idol first-season winner’s weakening desire to continue with the daytime grind, at a time when the daypart continues to lose viewers amid a changing financial picture for local stations as deregulation is on the horizon.

According to the New York Post’s Page Six column, Clarkson’s “personal problems” could force her to leave her show. Clarkson went AWOL for two weeks in March, forcing syndicator NBCUniversal Syndication Studios to use guest hosts. Clarkson did not reveal why she took the unscheduled vacation, but the 43-year-old singer had recently gone through a divorce and is now raising two kids by herself as a single mom. 

The situation has staffers concerned, perhaps more so than the TV stations that carry her, as the trades mentioned very little of the saga or the future of her show. While Page Six said Clarkson is exiting her show this upcoming season when her contract expires, there is no official announcement from her, the show, or NBCU.  

Clarkson’s saga comes as every major syndicated talk show (except for Live With Kelly and Mark) is up for renewal in 2026, including Drew Barrymore, Tamron Hall, and fellow Idol alum Jennifer Hudson, whose show received a last-minute renewal from Fox-owned stations. All of these shows mix in celebrity guests, heartwarming stories, and the occasional news item (and all wisely stay away from politics). 

An unnamed executive was quoted in Page Six, stating that Clarkson’s show is expensive to produce amid daytime TV’s challenging landscape, due to the impact of streaming and viewers returning to the workplace in the post-Covid era.  “It’s a tough job and profit margins are low,” the source said, which could easily describe all of these shows. NBCU’s Steve with Steve Harvey had similar issues as production costs soared after shifting production from Chicago to Los Angeles – not to mention NBCU yielding ownership of the show to IMG. NBCU owns Clarkson’s show outright. 

There was talk in the tabloids that former Today show anchor Hoda Kotb would replace Clarkson in the fall of 2026, but she made an appearance on her old show last week and flat out denied the rumor (Kotb is significantly older than Clarkson and the rest of the current daytime talk show crowd, and she might not appeal to younger audiences.) 

It’s a far cry from September 2018, when Clarkson signed a deal to host a daytime talk show. When it debuted a year later, it was an instant hit, with her Kellyoke (Clarkson signing a cover song at the beginning of each show) being a viral sensation. Clarkson was rewarded for her success by securing the lead-in slot for news on NBC-owned stations, including NBC 5, which airs the show at 3 p.m., in September 2022 after Ellen DeGeneres retired. 

But despite maintaining her audience (she still averages a million daily viewers), she’s been eclipsed in the ratings and in the buzz department by Barrymore, thanks in part to what Seinfeld would describe as a “close talker”. Her show moved from Los Angeles to New York in 2023, now competing in a very crowded marketplace for guests. 

So is Kelly Clarkson really calling it a career? She’ll have more time to think about it as she’s taking the summer off to perform at a Las Vegas residency soon, so we’ll know more in the fall. After all, we’ve seen this before, as this could be nothing more than posturing for a better contract. However, her angst appears to be real, and her staffers aren’t the only ones holding their breath as she contemplates her future with NBCU, with its owned stations, advertisers, and viewers doing likewise.