syndication

TMZ is teaming with parent company Fox on a four-week trial run of game show Who the Bleep Is That?, hosted by comedian Jeff Dye. The show will premiere on Fox Television Stations in 12 markets — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Houston, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Detroit, Orlando and Milwaukee — on Monday, March 6.

The company’s eighth daily court series will be available for fall 2023 in broadcast syndication and cable.

Judge Mathis and The People’s Court are ending their long TV runs, both victims of challenging market conditions within the daytime syndication landscape. Judge Mathis has been on the air for 24 seasons, winning a 2018 Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program. It was the first court show featuring an African American jurist to win. The People’s Court won four Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program in 2014, 2015, 2020 and 2021, which is the most wins for a court show in this category, and received 12 nominations. The People’s Court is the first court show to use binding arbitration, introducing the format into the genre in 1981, and it is the first popular, long-running reality series in the judicial genre.

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.

The show is poised to capture a new generation by making ordinary people famous for something other than being hot.

The instability of the overall syndication firmament is resulting in stability in other areas, such as locking shows and talent into longer-term renewals. The practice is nothing new in syndication, with established hits like Oprah, Ellen and others routinely having scored long-term deals. But the new reality of relatively low ratings for all launches — major new talkers Debmar-Mercury’s Sherri and Warner Bros.’ Jennifer Hudson are both averaging between a 0.6 and 0.7 household rating, according to Nielsen, thus far — has made multiyear deals rare for newer shows and almost non­existent for rookies.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the sitcom starring Kevin James, Leah Remini, Jerry Stiller and Patton Oswalt ran on CBS. Sony Pictures Television is selling all nine seasons of the sitcom across all linear and digital platforms.

Lionsgate’s Debmar-Mercury has renewed hit game show Family Feud through the 2025-26 season, taking the Fremantle-produced show into its landmark 50th year on television. Leading station groups Fox, CBS, Nexstar, Scripps and Tegna have signed multi-year renewals for the nationally syndicated ratings juggernaut, hosted by Steve Harvey.

Another daytime fixture, Dr. Phil McGraw, is leaving after more than two decades as one of television’s most popular talk show hosts. His syndicated daytime show, Dr. Phil, will end its run of original episodes with the current 2022-2023 television season, the show’s 21st. McGraw’s decision comes as his most recent contract is coming to an end. Dr. Phil received a five-season renewal in 2018 as part of a mega-deal extension with CBS Media Ventures, taking it through its current season.

You Bet Your Life, Pictionary, 25 Words or Less, Dish Nation and Divorce Court are picked up again by Fox Television Stations through 2023-24 season.

The new daily court series for fall 2023 in broadcast syndication and cable is a firm go.

Averaging 1.6 million daily viewers, Dateline in syndication has grown its audience by 21% year-over-year and ranks as a top five one-hour Monday-Friday show in syndication.

Hearst Television has picked up weekly political series Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, which is produced by its sister company Hearst Media Production Group, for two more seasons. Hearst also has reupped Sony Pictures Television to distribute the show for two more seasons.

The talk show genre has far from played itself out and there’s still room for more comers says Michaela Pereira, whose eponymous new talker debuts from PPI this fall. A full transcript of the conversation is included.

It sets a fall 2023 rollout for the weekly one-hour series highlighting home renovations for families impacted by natural disasters.

Channel Surf with Craig Ferguson is set to debut in fall 2023.

The CBS Media Ventures’ property is the latest talk show to get the green light for next season.

The Disney company’s owned and operated stations have ponied up a big increase to keep the long-running gameshows on their schedule. It has renewed both shows, which are the two-most watched shows in syndication, for five years through the 2027-28 season. This will take Wheel of Fortune through its 45th season and Jeopardy! through its 44th.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s freshman talker tops ratings charts and scores a renewal from Fox Television Stations, Hearst and others.

The freshman talker hosted by actress, comedian and Daytime Emmy-winning co-host of The View, Sherri Shepherd, gains a long-term extension from its anchor station group.

Executives expect a quiet ’23 for the syndication market but insist that streaming isn’t hastening its demise altogether. Audiences and advertisers are still hanging in, though programming budgets may need to be right sized under pressure from fragmentation.

Former CNN New Day and HLN host Michaela Pereira is slated to host a new one-hour syndicated talk show named Michaela! from PPI Releasing.

The 25-year company veteran will continue to oversee all broadcast syndication/distribution, over-the-air broadcast networks, as well as operations/distribution for HBCU GO.

It’s early days yet and no announcements have been made, but it’s a safe bet that all of the new shows introduced this fall will return for second seasons. At this juncture, there are very few shows in development for next fall, and low ratings mean low viewer awareness. Both factors argue for keeping shows on the air and giving viewers time to find them rather than churning through programs in search of an audience.

Drew Barrymore has scored President Biden’s first TV sitdown since last month’s midterm elections. Barrymore, 47, host of the syndicated Drew Barrymore Show, taped an interview with Biden and his wife, Jill, at the White House last Friday, although the program won’t air until Monday, Dec. 19.

Former NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Executives Kevin O’Donnell and Mark McKay are added to the company’s syndicated broadcast television sales team.

Mills Lane, who parlayed his fame as a boxing referee into his own daytime court show, has died at the age of 85. In 1998, Lane hit the small screen as the star of the syndicated courtroom show Judge Mills Lane, deciding real-life cases with his judicial expertise and hard-nosed demeanor. The series ended in 2001.

The pop culture game show hosted by Leah Remini is in its third season on Game Show Network and is now available to stations for fall 2023.

With a 10 p.m. primetime hand back hanging over broadcast, Fox Television Stations CEO Jack Abernethy says producing more of the same local news will have diminishing returns for the whole industry. In a wide-ranging Executive Session interview, Abernethy weighs in on programming challenges and their pressures on newsrooms, streaming opportunities and his outlook for syndication, measurement, auto’s resurgence in spot and broadcast’s ability to compete against the big streamers.

Forty-game winner Amy Schneider capped her big year by winning a hard-fought Jeopardy tournament of champions in an episode that aired Monday.

Drew Barrymore has come down with COVID so the CBS Media Ventures syndicated talker will be guest-hosted Monday and Tuesday by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and co-host Ross Mathews, Barrymore announced Thursday on Instagram.

In this repeat of the Talking TV episode from Oct.. 7, TVNewsCheck’s Michael Depp speaks with talk show host Tamron Hall about how her show is hitting a post-pandemic groove and her work with the NAB Leadership Foundation as its newly named industry ambassador. A full transcript of the conversation is included.