What hypes everyone up before they head to NATPE Miami is having a real-life movie star in the mix, and that is what syndication will get with the arrival of Drew Barrymore this fall. But two stars are better than one, and multi-hyphenate Nick Cannon also is joining the daytime party.
Drew Barrymore will bring her Hollywood star power to CBS's new 2020 offering.
When CBS Television Distribution announced it would do a talk show starring Barrymore, the media took notice. Barrymore is a movie star starting with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and moving through films like Scream, The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates whom everyone feels like they grew up with. In 2000, she kicked serious ass in a remake of Charlie's Angels, one of many movies she produced through her company, Flower Films.
More recently, she has executive produced and starred as Timothy Olyphant's bloodthirsty zombie wife in Netflix's Santa Clarita Diet. She also has her own lifestyle brand, Flower, with several lines available in retail chains such as Walmart and CVS.
That kind of longevity and brand power is a valuable commodity in the cluttered environment of daytime TV, where these days it's hard to tear people away from their phones, much less get them to tune into a program at a regular day and time. So when CBS Television Distribution had the opportunity to get into business with a household name, the company jumped on it.
The need in the marketplace aligns with who Drew is: She is the OG optimist, CBS Television Distribution executive VP, development Elaine Bauer Brooks said. I think the marketplace needs an uplifting, fun, escapist kind of show that isn't saccharine, but has a comedic edge.
It's not Barrymore's first go-round in syndication. In 2016, Warner Bros. tried to sell a talker starring Barrymore that would serve as a lead-in to Ellen DeGeneres, whose team would have executive produced the show. But NBCUniversal instead chose to renew Steve Harvey's talker after it migrated to Los Angeles. That meant Warner Bros. couldn't find time slots on major-market stations.
Barrymore didn't lose hope, though. I love this saying that I have on a neon sign in my entryway: Timing is Everything, she said. Sometimes things are seeds being planted and when they don't manifest, we tend to take that as a failure or a missed opportunity. But I have learned that nothing is for naught something will come around and that time and education and investment will pay off somewhere else later.
And she was right. In 2019, CBS decided Barrymore was the person they wanted to take a chance on. This was a year we felt we wanted to take a big swing and we found a person we believed in enough to do that, Bauer Brooks said. This show is a natural extension of who we are as a company.
Barrymore, 44, is a single mother of two. I have had to figure out my whole life in front of everyone, she said. I have had to learn in the last decade how to truly take care of myself. Then I had two girls, and I had to learn what it's like to truly take care of others. I am throwing an all-ages party and everyone's invited. That's how I've made movies and how I've built the companies I have.
Bauer Brooks said the show will be authentic to who Barrymore is. It will include some celebrity, lifestyle, pop culture and humor, she said. I can't wait to tackle all of that with Drew. The audience said it best after watching the pilot: it's like going to a fun party and coming home with a new best friend.
Fox to Launch Nick Cannon
Nick Cannon adds a syndicated talker for Debmar-Mercury.
Meanwhile, Fox will be debuting a talk show starring another celebrity who has lived much of his life in the spotlight: Nick Cannon, who hosts such shows as The Masked Singer on Fox and sketch comedy series Wild 'N Out on MTV, which has become a touring live show and a chain of restaurants. Cannon is friends with daytime talk-show host Wendy Williams, so when she needed guest hosts to fill in for her last February, he was happy to oblige. Hosting three shows, he looked extremely comfortable and grabbed some attention for his performance.
Nick is really creative and really smart but he also understands the business of television, said Ira Bernstein, co-president of Lionsgate-owned Debmar-Mercury, which is producing and distributing the show. Debmar-Mercury tends to test its shows first and then take them nationwide. But in the case of Cannon, they felt at ease with skipping that step.
Nick is so successful in all the things he's doing, plus he was so great when he hosted Wendy, added Mort Marcus, co-president, Debmar-Mercury. We were taken aback in a good way. We felt in this particular case he had already been tested.
This fall, Debmar-Mercury will have its hands full. Besides launching Cannon's show, it's debuting Pop TV's Schitt's Creek in off-network syndication and this year's entertainment magazine test, Central Ave, as a first-run one-hour series for weekends. For Cannon, starring in his own talk show will mean staying in one place probably New York City for a while, and he seems fine with that.
I don't feel like this is settling down, Cannon said. Finally, I'll get a central hub for all of the things I do.
Like Barrymore, Cannon plans to make his show a fun place to hang out. This is a show about good times and escapism, he said. I want to inspire an audience and let them get to know me in a fun and intimate way. I have studied everyone from the greats, like Merv and Oprah, and people who are doing a great job in the space right now, like Ellen and Wendy. I want to tap into that and bring my comedy, fun and knowledge of pop culture.
Sony Fills Plate With The Good Dish'
A third show in the marketplace is Son
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
What hypes everyone up before they head to NATPE Miami is having a real-life movie star in the mix, and that is what syndication will get with the arrival of Drew Barrymore this fall. But two stars are better than one, and multi-hyphenate Nick Cannon also is joining the daytime party.
