Why This Matters: The more swings taken in daytime, the more chances for new product and breakout hits.
Everybody say love!
RuPaul's been saying that for years, whether on RuPaul's Drag Race or on his radio show or his podcast or even on The RuPaul Show on VH1 back in the day. And everybody in the audience repeats it. And more importantly feels it.
Host RuPaul on set with co-hosts Michelle Visage (c.) and Ross Mathews
That's exactly the vibe RuPaul Charles drag queen, diva, author, recording artist, broadcaster and Emmy Award winner wants to bring to daytime TV.
On June 10, Fox Television Stations began a three-week, seven-market test of his talk show, The RuPaul Show, which will air through June 28. If all goes well, the show will be sold into national syndication for a fall 2020 start.
RuPaul also is an example of several ways syndication is changing with the times: He is a big name, but was still willing to do a three-week test if that's what it took to get his show on the air. He's throwing himself into the marketing and promotion just as if he was launching a national show, with the hopes that he will be. And the show is being offered on several online platforms to give as many people as possible the chance to sample it.
On the surface, though, RuPaul is about glitz, glamour and glitter. He's about lifting platinum-blonde wigs to the highest heights (and girl, we do mean high, because RuPaul is very tall), sliding into five-inch stilettos and bedecking himself with the latest fashions.
But that belies what all of it is really about.
Even as a kid, I wanted to break the fourth wall and say to other people, Is this all kind of weird to you? Does this all seem like it's an illusion, like it's someone's weird joke?' RuPaul said on the set of his talk show, which was housed for this week of tapings on The Real's set on the Warner Bros. lot in Los Angeles. It wasn't until I was about 11 or 12 and I saw Monty Python's Flying Circus on PBS. And I went, They get it. That's my tribe right there.' They didn't take anything seriously. They were making fun of everything. Nothing was off-limits. There were men in drag, men out of drag, there was everything. And I thought, That's it. My tribe is out there.'
Making a Space to Play
For RuPaul, drag is more of a guiding principle than a practice. It's shape-shifting. It's a way for people to play, to reveal who they really are and to experience something new, different and beautiful. Having helped that tribe find each other, now he brings them with him wherever he goes, and ideally, to a nationally distributed talk show that runs for 20 years. And this time, he won't be in drag but he will be, of course, very well-dressed.
You know, drag is not easy to do. It's very constricting, if you know what I mean, he said, launching into his signature laugh. This is more about me hanging out in my living room with my friends having a conversation. I believe that with where we are today socially, politically, emotionally in this country, there needs to be an inclusiveness so that people at home can be a part of that conversation.
Before RuPaul and crew can get to 20 years, they have to get through the test and into national syndication. On Monday, June 10, The RuPaul Show turned in a 0.6 rating/1 share household ratings average, according to Nielsen, in the seven Fox markets on which it is airing. That's up 20% from its year-ago time periods and even with its lead-ins.
We gave RuPaul really good time periods and we are also airing the Women's World Cup right now, Fox Television Stations executive VP of programming Frank Cicha said. What I like about all of this is that we have that event happening and we have a brand-new show in half of our group that is fresh and immediate. I love the overall strategy of it.
It's early to glean much information from ratings, and the show also is running in the typically slow summer, so Fox will evaluate its performance using more than just the ratings. Fox looks at the production, the talent, the topicality and how it performs on other platforms, including social media. And The RuPaul Show isn't just airing on TV stations in specific time periods, it's also available on YouTube, the local stations' websites and on RuPaul's own site, so his fans can come and find him whenever they want.
Ultimately, these things are going to have to be offered in such a way that people can consume them in the ways they want to consume them, Cicha said.
RuPaul himself understands the game of promotion, so every day he exhorted people to seek out the show online and post about it on social media via @RuPaulShow. And the week after taping wrapped, he hit the road to visit the various markets.
The show is already a big deal just because RuPaul's in it, Cicha said, and that provides an immediate boost to what's always a challenging and crowded marketing scenario.
From what he's seen of the show so far, I think [RuPaul's] done a very good job, Cicha said. I liked him [immediately], because he's a good listener. That's gigantic with these sorts of shows. If you can't listen, you aren't going to be a good interviewer.
Over the course of the 15 shows, RuPaul listened to the likes of James Corden, the Property Brothers (Jonathan and Drew Scott), Leah Remini, Matt Bomer, Marcia Gay Harden, Sen. Cory Booker and more, as well as many so-called regular people.
He's so naturally curious and he loves hearing people's stories, said executive producer Jill Van Lokeren, who previously produced The Oprah Winfrey Show and just completed Michelle Obama's book tour. Even off-camera, he goes up to people and he wants to know their stories. I fell in love
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...
Why This Matters: The more swings taken in daytime, the more chances for new product and breakout hits.
