(Aug. 2, 2017 – Source: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images North America)
*As previously reported, Steve Harvey’s syndicated daytime talk show “Steve” will end in the summer after a seven-year run and the show will be replaced by Kelly Clarkson‘s upcoming daytime talk show.
The final episode was allegedly filmed last Thursday, and NBC will air original “Steve” episodes through June and reruns in September.
Meanwhile, Melissa McCarthy will replace Steve as the host of “Little Big Shots” as the reality competition series returns to NBC for a fourth season.
“The Family Feud” host previously told reporters at the Variety Entertainment Summit back in January about the possibility of his show being canceled.
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There’s backstory here between Harvey and NBC — look it up — but one point is that network felt Harvey had too many outside obligations outside of his NBC gigs, which is why he no longer has any NBC gigs. So there’s a lot of inside baseball in this sketch but also …
— Cynthia Littleton (@Variety_Cynthia) May 13, 2019
“I thought I was [going to stay with NBC], until they made an announcement a couple weeks ago that they wanted to give Kelly Clarkson the owned-and-operated NBC networks — that’s my slot,” Steve announced. “I don’t know if it sold, it’s not selling like they thought, but I thought it would have been nice of them to come to me …”
He continued to slam the network for how they handled the situation:
“I’m just an old school guy, and I just thought that you’re supposed to just talk to people and just go, ‘Look, you’ve been good business for us. This is what we’re thinking of doing, are you okay with that?’ No, you just don’t put something in the paper and say, ‘I’m just going to make this move right here,’ because it’s crazy.”
Steve’s show may have been “the casualty of animosity between NBCUniversal and Endeavor’s IMG Original Content over IMG’s takeover of the show two seasons ago,” per Variety.
Via Variety:
After his initial five-year deal with Endemol ended, Harvey in 2016 opted to cut a deal with IMG Original Content to produce a new version of the show, renamed “Steve,” that relocated to Los Angeles starting with season six in fall 2017.
IMG offered Harvey a much larger ownership stake in the show, a higher salary and more creative control over the production. The deal commanded attention in the industry because IMG is a corporate sibling of WME, which represents Harvey, raising the specter of conflict of interest as IMG became Harvey’s production partner.
NBCUniversal executives were furious at losing their stake in Harvey’s show after the transition to IMG, even though it remained the distributor of “Steve.”
It was no surprise when NBC moved to develop a high-profile new show to replace “Steve.”
Variety’s Cynthia Littleton writes that the network felt Harvey “had too many outside obligations” to maintain his NBC hosting jobs.
Meanwhile, Harvey will continue as the host of syndicated game show “Family Feud,” and he is reportedly in demand as an emcee for numerous specials including the annual Miss Universe pageant and Fox’s “New Year’s Eve with Steve Harvey: Live From Times Square,” according to Variety.
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