Steve Harvey's talk show experiment has run its course. Shortly after Harvey taped the season finale of Steve, anonymous sources told the Hollywood Reporter that NBCUniversal would stop distributing the show. With NBC out of the picture and no markets looking to pick up the show on their own, Harvey's daytime celebrity-fueled talk show is coming to a quiet end. NBC had previously shared that they were planning to give Harvey's time slot over to Kelly Clarkson's new talk show. Steve's ratings consistently fell to the point that the show is no longer pulling in 2 million viewers per episode. Harvey had previously shared the struggles of his new show and celebrity-focused format. "Moving the show out here, the intent was to bring on a bunch of celebrities and have a late-night feel. But the daytime audience is totally different. They just like what they like, cooking segments and makeovers," he told THR. "I'm a die-hard believer in reinvention. But sometimes you just have to leave the wheel alone, and let it roll down the hill.... If a segment rates well, they go, 'Well, why would you change that? My thought is to try for something that could rate better, but they don't like that." The de facto cancellation of his show isn't the only trouble Harvey is wading through. He stirred up controversy on another one of his shows when he told the Family Feud audience that "rich people don't sleep eight hours a day." "It ain’t but 24 hours in a day. You cannot be sleep eight hours a day," he said in the viral clip. "You can’t live in L.A. and wake up at 8 o’clock in the morning. It’s 11 o’clock on the east coast. The stock market been open two hours. They already making decisions about your life and your ass was sleep.” Twitter roasted Harvey for his unhealthy assertion, pointing to his Miss Universe gaffe from 2015.<doc-sep>RELATED STORIES Ken Jeong and Joel McHale to Host Fox's New Year's Eve Countdown Special, Replacing Steve Harvey Ken Jeong and Joel McHale to Host Fox's New Year's Eve Countdown Special, Replacing Steve Harvey New Year's Eve 2020: The Best, Worst and Wackiest Countdown Moments Not even syndicated series are safe from the ax in this week of heavy TV casualties: Steve Harvey‘s talk show will stop airing this summer, our sister site Variety reports. Steve taped its final episode Thursday; the installment, which will serve as a series finale, will air in June. Kelly Clarkson’s eponymous daytime chatfest will take Steve‘s place on NBC owned-and-operated affiliates in the fall, airing weekdays as the lead-in to Ellen in the following markets: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas/Fort Worth, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Miami, San Diego and Hartford. (In Boston, it will air in a different time slot.) Harvey hosted The Steve Harvey Show for five seasons. That endeavor wrapped in May 2017, after which Harvey partnered with IMG to retool the daytime offering and call it Steve. Production of the series also moved from Chicago to Los Angeles at that time. The shiny, new Steve launched in September 2017. Steve‘s cancellation doesn’t mean the comedian is out of work: He also is the current host of Family Feud. Popular on TVLine It’s cold comfort, but Harvey’s show was in good company Friday: ABC’s The Fix, The Kids Are Alright, Speechless and Splitting Up Together, NBC’s I Feel Bad and Fox’s The Passage and Lethal Weapon all were sacked the same day. (For an up-to-the-minute list of broadcast network cancellations and renewals, go to TVLine’s Renewal Scorecard… and refresh often.)<doc-sep>Steve Harvey’s syndicated daytime talk show “Steve” will end its run in June. The writing was on the wall for the show last September year when NBC cut a deal with Kelly Clarkson for a talk-variety hour to launch in the fall. “The Kelly Clarkson Show” will move into the prime daytime slots occupied on NBC O&Os by Harvey’s show for the past seven seasons. “Steve” taped its final episode on Thursday. Originals will air through June and the show will remain on the air in reruns through September. The demise of “Steve” raises the question of whether Harvey’s show was a casualty of animosity between NBCUniversal and Endeavor’s IMG Original Content over IMG’s takeover of the show two seasons ago. Harvey’s entry into the daytime talk arena began in 2012 with “The Steve Harvey Show,” co-produced by Endemol Shine North America and NBCUniversal and distributed by NBCUniversal Television Domestic Television Distribution. That show was taped in Chicago and featured Harvey more in the Oprah Winfrey/Phil Donahue host mode, albeit with his signature humor. The show was one of the few new entries in daytime to deliver solid, if not spectacular, ratings. This season, it has averaged about 1.8 million viewers a week, putting it at No. 5 among syndicated talk shows behind “Dr. Phil,” “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” “Live with Kelly and Ryan” and “Maury.” 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. The new show put more emphasis on celebrity guests and comedic segments. 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.” The new version of the show also remained in its time slots on the NBC O&Os in crucial major markets, but it was no surprise when NBC moved to develop a high-profile new show to replace “Steve.” A rep for Endeavor, the corporate parent of IMG, declined to comment. A rep for Harvey could not immediately be reached for comment. A source close to the situation asserted that Harvey has no regrets about making the shift to IMG. “Steve took a shot,” the source said. “He still made more money than he would have under the old deal.” An industry observer unconnected to the show noted that the tussle reflected the strain between talent with clout trying to exert more control, with help from nontraditional partners such as agency-affiliated production entities and private equity backers, and the renewed focused by the largest media conglomerates on owning the vast majority of the content carried on their networks. IMG spent the past few months looking for new stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and other major markets to keep Harvey on the air in syndication. “Steve” was also shopped to cable and digital buyers. The show has ramped up the production of digital content in recent months, and there’s chatter that Harvey may establish a digital platform, possibly with Facebook, to showcase the kind of comedic and topical segments that have proven popular on the daytime show. Despite the demise of “Steve,” Harvey will continue to be a regular presence on TV. He’s the host of syndicated game show “Family Feud,” from Lionsgate’s Debmar-Mercury, and he is 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.” POPULAR THIS WEEK:<doc-sep>
Steve Harvey‘s daytime talk show has been canceled by NBC after seven years with the network. The syndicated show taped its final episode on Thursday and episodes will air through June with reruns airing through September, according to Variety. The news may have not been surprising to Harvey himself, who expressed uncertainty over the show’s place at the network back in January. At the time, Harvey singled out Kelly Clarkson’s new show as the reason his show would likely find itself looking for a new network in the near future. The Kelly Clarkson Show will move into the daytime slot previously occupied by Harvey’s show for the past seven seasons, Variety reports. Reps for Harvey and NBC did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s requests for comment. steve-harvey-kelly-clarkson Credit: Getty; Robin Marchant/Getty The popular syndicated program, distributed by NBCUniversal Television, began back in 2012 under the name Steve Harvey, adopting a new name and more celebrity and comedy-based format in 2017. Harvey’s show had originally followed a similar format to the popular Dr. Phil program, winning a handful of Emmy awards in the Informative Talk Show category. NBC executives were reportedly unhappy with the decision to cancel Harvey’s show, due to the network losing its ownership stakes of the popular daytime talk show, according to Variety. Harvey’s producers are in the process of shopping the program to other networks, however, fans of the show can still watch him on Family Feud in the meantime. In September 2018, original American Idol champion Clarkson first revealed that she would be returning to the small screen in the fall of 2019 with her very own daytime talk show. And in January, Harvey spoke out about Clarkson’s show taking his time slot, admitting that he would have liked for NBC to reveal the news to him personally instead of finding out in the press.