As I was watching Steve Harvey, who I call the male Oprah, I got to thinking about how nowadays, the positive male daytime talk show hosts are few and far between. So that got me to researching male talk show hosts of today. Just browsing the guide, you see Steve Wilkos, Jerry Springer, the aforementioned Steve Harvey, Dr. Oz, Maury, and Dr. Phil. Going back a little, and you’ve got Wayne Brady, Tony Danza, Montel Williams, and including some news/political shows, you have Glenn Beck and others. More still are court shows with Judge Joe Brown and Judge Mathis, although court tv and daytime talk shows differ in the fact that one is affecting someone’s life legally whereas the other is more for pure entertainment. Now, before I go further, my criteria for consideration is male, single host (not partner or group), USA daytime show (airing between 9am and 4pm) in the past 10 years.
Looking at the list there, how much positivity is on each show and at what percentage rate versus how much drama is on the show? Let’s see, I’ve named 12. Of the 12, 7 are still on air/creating new episodes. Of the 7 we will exclude the court shows, so we have 5 left. Of those 5, 2 are majority positive shows to watch (Steve Harvey and Dr. Oz) and 2 have security details from the guests attempting to beat each other up. Dr. Phil walks the fence of drama/positive show because though he doesn’t have physical fights and a security detail like Jerry Springer and Steve Wilkos, he does have a lot of bad attitudes, yelling, rudeness, disrespect, etc. in the name of intervention.
I was trying to make the point that Steve was a rare breed in the name of male, daytime talk show hosts, but statistically, he isn’t as different as I thought. 5 is a low sample size and an even lower population to conclude anything with high confidence. With that, I will continue on straight, unadulterated opinion. There is no other talk show host on air like Steve and hasn’t been in the past say 8 years. He’s a comedian, he’s loud, he’s a straight up no chaser kind of guy, he’s Black, and he’s positive. He strikes me as not one to have a live studio audience, but rather a more authentic live audience that can boo you if you aren’t good. Yet here he is making it happen. He has reinvented himself and the daytime talk show game. Ellen is a good example of another host that is like Steve, but is not Steve. He is not really filling the void that Oprah left, but he is both creating his own niche while giving us a bit of what Oprah took when she stopped her show.
Another point I was trying to make was the number of males in daytime is so low, and how the audiences, (live and at home) are mostly women, yet a point to ponder is why. Why aren’t men watching these shows and filling the audiences? Is it the content or the delivery type that is unappealing? These are questions that shall keep me up just long enough to type them. There will be more pressing questions for another day.
