Ryan Seacrest said goodbye to Live With Kelly and Ryan on Friday, leaving the syndicated daytime show after six seasons. Kelly Ripa’s husband, Mark Consuelos, will join her as co-host starting April 17.
Live with Kelly and Ryan will say goodbye to Ryan Seacrest on Friday, April 14, Kelly Ripa and Seacrest confirmed on ABC’s Countdown to Oscars 95: The Red Carpet Live Sunday night. Ripa’s husband, Mark Consuelos, who has guest-hosted the show many times, will become the official co-host on Monday, April 17, and the show will be renamed Live with Kelly and Mark.
After six seasons, Ryan Seacrest announced on today’s Live with Kelly and Ryan that he is leaving the syndicated show. Kelly Ripa, who has hosted the show since 2001, will be joined by actor and husband, Mark Consuelos, and the show will be rebranded as Live with Kelly and Mark.
It’s striking that Live is enjoying continued boom times (its 33rd-season premiere in September registered some 2.66 million viewers) in a climate that has most richly rewarded, lately, its network mate The View, with its strongly opinionated political junkies. Live, airing two hours earlier at 9 a.m. in New York and with a softer mandate, has no politics in its DNA, though Ripa has ushered the nation through hard news.
While Ryan Seacrest was forced to take time off from the syndicated Live with Kelly and Ryan while suffering from “exhaustion,” his morning show co-host Kelly Ripa has been picking up the slack from a house in the Caribbean.
Exclusives
The View, Live With Kelly and Ryan and Tamron Hall have been added to the list of shows that will be taping without a studio audience due to growing concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. “Given the current developing situation in New York City, we have made the decision to suspend live audiences from attending our news broadcasts and talk shows,” a Walt Disney Television spokesperson said this morning.
Kelly Ripa called RyanSeacrest a “privilege to work with” on their Thursday show, days after his sexual harassment accuser went public.
The syndicated and homey Live With Kelly and Ryan sticks to light banter even as its NBC rival, Megyn Kelly Today, takes on weightier matters.
The new hour of Today dipped to a 1.9/7 on day two of head-to-head competition against the syndicated veteran in metered markets.
Kelly And Ryan Kick Off New ‘Live’ Season
On Monday Live with Kelly and Ryan launches a new season — its 30th in national syndication — of goes-down-easy chat and interviews. Live has dominated entertainment talk TV in daytime for decades, and that is unlikely to change. Even so, a face-off is nigh that media handicappers will delight in tracking: Kelly vs. Kelly. That is, Megyn Kelly, former Fox News star who earlier this year jumped to NBC News and will anchor the third hour of NBC’s Today (currently averaging 2.4 million viewers versus 2.8 million for “Live”). Airing at 9 a.m. ET, Megyn Kelly Today will go head-to-head against Live in many cities starting Sept. 25.
Live With Kelly And Ryan continues its ratings momentum. Its inaugural week was up 18% in households (2.6/9 vs. 2.2/8) to score the show’s highest-rated week in nine weeks. Live With Kelly And Ryan also was up week to week by 22% among women 25-54 (1.1/9 vs. 0.9/7) to match a nine-week high — since the show’s post-Oscars week in February.
A year after Michael after Strahan exited the syndicated Live morning show for Good Morning America,host Kelly Ripa introduced her permanent co-host. Veteran broadcaster Ryan Seacrest is the new co-host of the newly-rechristened Live with Kelly and Ryan.
