Ellen Unstoppable, Renewed Through 2020
If you haven’t been paying attention to television before primetime, Ellen DeGeneres is the reigning queen of daytime. The Ellen DeGeneres Show, her long running daytime talk show, has been renewed by NBC. While the previous deal ran through the 2016-17 season, she is now contracted through 2020.
The Ellen DeGeneres Show first aired in 2003 and has been killing it in the ratings. Since the departure of Oprah Winfrey, Ellen has taken over daytime and is beloved by her fans. Since Winfrey left four years ago, DeGeneres has been the most popular daytime host with female viewers. And those viewers will be guaranteed their favorite show for another five years.
Ellen started out as a standup in the 80’s, transitioned to television and movies in the 90’s and in the 2000’s has become an icon, hosting awards shows, starring in the mega hit Finding Nemo and its upcoming sequel Finding Dory, and of course now with the mega-success of The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
While Ellen looks to continue her domination of daytime chat, it appears one of her colleagues will not be returning. NBC also announced the end of The Meredith Vieira Show. What does this mean for the renewed DeGeneres? It appears her program will be pushed down an hour while newscasts will fill the gap left by Vieira’s cancellation.
While this is unfortunate for Viera, it will be interesting to see if the time change has any long term effect. Between the runaway train that is Jimmy Fallon, and the massive success of Ellen, NBC has daytime and late night locked down.
