Tamron Hall wants to keep the tradition of daytime talk alive
After veteran TV journalist Tamron Hall made a deal in 2018 to host her own daily daytime talk show, she heard plenty of warnings about the challenges ahead.
Tyra Banks told Hall it would be the toughest job she’s ever had. Sally Jessy Raphael told her to “watch her back.” Oprah Winfrey, who remains the model for all aspiring hosts, said: “I don’t know how you do it being a mom, because it takes every ounce of you.”
When another talk show host Hall met at a party sounded off on the topic, she had a retort ready.
“I said, ‘My grandfather was a sharecropper who was born in 1901, and he couldn’t read,’” the Texas native recalled. “I make my living with words. I’ll figure it out.”
Former “Today” co-host Tamron Hall has signed a deal to develop and host a new daytime talk show for Disney/ABC, the company announced Wednesday.
Hall did figure it out. On Dec. 4, her show, “Tamron Hall,” hit its 760th episode, making it the second-longest-running syndicated talk show in the history of the Walt Disney Co. The program airs on Disney’s ABC stations, including KABC Channel 7 in Los Angeles, and other outlets covering 95% of the U.S.
On Friday, Hall is up for the talk host award at the Daytime Emmy Awards. It’s her third such nomination, and she’s won the category twice. In 2020, Hall was the first freshman host to get the honor.
While Hall has mastered the grind of daily hosting, the program also has to contend with the current TV landscape upended by the consumer shift to streaming video.
The daytime talk show was once a major staple for viewers, providing a portal into pop culture and a source of companionship for people at home during the day.
But like the rest of the traditional TV business, the genre has been in a steady decline in recent years as it now competes against big budget scripted programs on streaming services that viewers can watch any time on demand. Even older folks, long the most reliable daytime viewers, are spending more time streaming true crime shows during the day.
“It’s harder to get people to follow any kind of ongoing habitual pattern of watching talk shows,” said Hilary Estey McLoughlin, an independent producer and former syndication program executive.
In the last two years, three of the longest-running daytime talk hits, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” “Dr. Phil” and “Rachael Ray,” ended their runs. Only one significant new entry is on tap for next season; production company Debmar-Mercury is developing a show with comic actor Ken Jeong.
The number of people watching traditional TV during the day also continues to slide. So far in the current TV season that began in September, an average of 8.65 million people are viewing television in daytime, according to Nielsen data, a 9% drop from a year ago.
With ratings and ad revenues in decline, local TV stations that have long depended on syndicated programming are also looking to cut costs and are turning to more hours from their news departments. Fox TV stations will launch new syndicated programs only after a summer trial run can prove they are viable.
“Tamron Hall,” which premiered in 2019, has managed to defy the downward ratings trend. The show averaged 978,000 viewers through mid-November, a slight increase over last year, according to Nielsen data. Others in the genre including “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” “The Drew Barrymore Show,” “The Jennifer Hudson Show” and “Sherri” with host Sherri Sheppard, have all seen drops of 8% to 11%.
The “CBS This Morning Saturday” host is bringing a lifetime of experience to the network’s George Floyd coverage.
Hall believes that viewers — whom she refers to as her “Tam Fam” — are still finding the program, as some repeat episodes perform better in the ratings than the first time they ran. Making it through five seasons has been especially satisfying for the host, given the path she took to get the show launched.
Hall, 53, was a top anchor at NBC News for more than 10 years after a successful run in local TV that started in Bryan-College Station, Texas. She had a following on MSNBC, where she had a daily newscast, and won true crime fans on ID Discovery, where she hosted “Dateline: Crime.”
In 2014, she became the first African American woman to be a co-host of NBC’s morning franchise “Today” as part of the program’s third hour — a historic designation she took pride in.
But in 2017, NBC News hired Megyn Kelly, who had emerged as a hot property at Fox News. The network converted “Today‘s” third hour into a vehicle for her.
Hall lost her role there, a move criticized by the National Assn. of Black Journalists, and she left the network. (A year later, Kelly was forced out of NBC after she made comments on her show defending the use of blackface on Halloween.)
Hall believes her departure from NBC actually deepened her bond with viewers. “We’ve all experienced the feeling of not being chosen,” she said. “People saw a version of their own lives in that. It’s been instilled into people rooting for me.”
As Hall pondered her next step, she was approached by mogul Harvey Weinstein, who was interested in producing a talk show for her. They started meeting with potential studios and networks about the project. But the partnership ended abruptly in October 2017 when reports surfaced that Weinstein had paid off women who had accused him of sexual harassment and assault. It was ground zero of the #MeToo movement and the beginning of Weinstein’s downfall.
“I was living in Harlem at the time, and I was walking down the street when someone called me,” Hall recalled. “And this person said, ‘They are mentioning the R-word and Harvey Weinstein.’ And I said, ‘Retirement?’ I had no idea.”
Soon, Hall was out selling the show on her own. “There were a couple of times I sat down and I said, ‘Let me just get this out there — I’ve never been alone in a room with Harvey Weinstein,’” she recalled.
(Hall has since put in a request to interview Weinstein, now serving a 23-year prison sentence after being convicted of rape in both New York and California.)
The development was unsettling. But Hall had other life-changing moments that kept it in perspective.
“If I were not going through IVF and were not in a relationship with Steven, I would have been on the floor in a corner a lot more times than I was,” she said. Hall married music executive Steven Greener and gave birth to their son Moses in 2019, described on the cover of People magazine as a “miracle baby.”
Disney bought her program as executives were drawn to Hall’s experience as a newsperson who could think on her feet on live TV. They believed her background would appeal to viewers at ABC’s TV stations, which routinely draw the largest local news audiences in their markets.
“She feels credible to the viewers,” McLoughlin said. “They feel they have a connection to her.”
When Hall recently walked to the curb of a Manhattan street for her car, a stranger came up to her as if she were a neighbor and spoke approvingly of the show’s new time slot in New York .
Hall’s program is mostly upbeat and exuberant as she presents a mix of celebrity interviews, stories about people overcoming adversity, cooking demonstrations, fashion and personal advice.
But she also flexes her hard news muscles, willing to devote full programs to menopause, women in Iran and Brittney Griner, the WNBA star held in a Russian prison for nearly 10 months. Former First Lady Michelle Obama is among her newsmaking guests.
Daytime talk show hosts may again never dominate the cultural conversation, or top celebrity earnings list, the way Winfrey did during much of her 29-season run. But the format still provides a platform for launching other projects.
Hall has also become an author with a series of novels featuring a character named Jordan Manning, a journalist with a background in forensic science. The first title, “As the Wicked Watch,” has been optioned for a possible TV project at CBS, and a second book is out in March.
“Every publisher we met with made an offer,” she said. “I was told that there was no Black female protagonist solving crimes written by a Black woman. I was like, ‘Really? I’m in.’”
She also sold a children’s book and is at work on a cookbook. With experience as an executive producer of her own program — a condition she insisted on — she has also been approached about producing other shows.
Hall’s five years as a talk show host surpasses the run of previous “Today” show alums who have attempted the transition. Programs hosted by Meredith Vieira, Katie Couric and Jane Pauley all lasted two seasons.
“I needed to watch them to be who I am,” said Hall.
Hall has a paparazzi photo of herself leaving NBC Studios at Rockefeller Center for the last time.
“Sometimes I cry when I look at it,” she said, recalling how she was 48 at the time time and didn’t know what was next for her. “Now, I walk out the door and people are happy to see me.”
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