Kelly Clarkson quits talk show grind, “Sherri” canceled

Moves took place within a few hours of each other Monday

Within a few hours Monday evening, two syndicated talk shows saw their runs come to an end, but for different reasons. 

As expected, Kelly Clarkson announced on social media that she would be leaving her NBCUniversal Syndication Studios show this spring after seven seasons. 

The news doesn’t come as a surprise: the end of Clarkson’s show had been discussed since last June, as she was absent sporadically due to family issues. Clarkson’s ex-husband Brandon Blackson died last year after a three-year battle with cancer, as he was the father of her two children. Clarkson’s show premiered in September 2019 and took over Ellen DeGeneres’ time slots on the NBC-owned stations when she retired in 2022, including the 3 p.m. news lead-in time slot in Chicago over WMAQ-TV (NBC 5). During the span of her show, Clarkson won 24 Daytime Emmy awards. 

Nearly an hour later, another syndicated show announced it was ending, and it was one hosted by Chicago native Sherri Shepherd, whose Sherri was being dropped from syndication after four seasons. Unlike Clarkson’s show, Shepherd’s show ending came as a surprise, as there was no indication it was doing poorly in the ratings, as it does well with Black audiences.

Lionsgate-owned Debmar-Mercury hopes to continue the show on another platform. 

“This decision is driven by the evolving daytime television landscape and does not reflect on the strength of the show, its production – which has found strong creative momentum this season – or the incredibly talented Sherri Shepherd,” Debmar-Mercury co-presidents Ira Bernstein and Mort Marcus said in a joint statement. “We believe in this show and in Sherri and intend to explore alternatives for it on other platforms.”

Shepard’s show premiered in 2022 as a replacement for The Wendy Williams Show, as she was forced out due to health issues. Shepherd maintained Williams’ station lineup, which included Fox Television Stations,  Nexstar, Hearst, Tegna, and Gray. In Chicago, Sherri took over Williams’ old 10 a.m. time slot on Fox-owned WFLD (Fox 32), but last September was moved to 1 p.m., opposite Tamron Hall on ABC-owned WLS-TV (ABC 7) and new soap Beyond The Gates on CBS-owned WBBM-TV (CBS Chicago), with both shows also popular among Black audiences. 

Both programs were up for renewal this season, as are almost all other daytime talkers, including Disney’s Hall, CBS Media Ventures’ Drew Barrymore, Warner Bros.’ The Jennifer Hudson Show, and NBCUniversal’s conflict talkers Steve Wilkos and Karamo. 

The cancellations come as daytime television continues to lose ground to other platforms, including YouTube, streaming, and of course, cord-cutting. Advertising revenue has also declined over the years, as many of these shows are expensive to produce. Pioneered by Phil Donahue, and popularized even further by Oprah Winfrey and later Rosie O’Donnell, Ricki Lake, and Jerry Springer, the daytime show genre at one point saw as many as 20 shows on the air in the 1990s, peaking in September 1995 with the debut of eight new shows (they all failed, including two late-night entries)

It’s too early to tell what will replace these shows come September, as NBCUniversal and Debmar-Mercury may try to hold onto these soon-to-be-open time slots. However, this is easier said than done, as most non-network station groups have made it loud and clear that they are through buying expensive first-run syndicated programs and are investing in more local and lifestyle programming. For example, Nexstar’s WGN-TV stopped airing first-run syndicated programming a few years ago and is airing local shows Daytime Chicago, Spotlight Chicago, and Take Two. Fox 32 debuted the two-hour Chicago Now at 10 a.m. last September, shifting Sherri and Jennifer Hudson to afternoons (Hudson nearly escaped cancellation last year as Fox made a last-minute decision to renew her show, but may be out of luck this time around as Warner Bros. will have a new owner by this time next year.)

The future of first-run syndicated talk is looking shaky, but if you think about it, it’s coming full circle. In the fall of 1979, only five talk shows aired in syndication: the aforementioned Donahue, Merv Griffin, an unsuccessful effort by the husband-and-wife team of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, and the declining Dinah Shore and Mike Douglas shows, as stations filled the time slots with network programming, old movies, and off-network programming. By this fall, we could have the same number of talk shows – or even lower – remaining in first-run.