Daytime talk shows film without fans
Things get weird as social distancing hits talk shows The absence of crowds is particularly striking on the daytime talk show circuit.
The fans that make up Wendy Williams’s studio audience are so integral to her syndicated daytime talk show that she regularly refers to them as her co-hosts. But when Williams began her show Wednesday, the trademark whoops that welcome her to each episode sounded a little less amplified than usual.
For the first time since her show debuted in 2008, there were no fans staring back at Williams. The former radio shock jock was instead offering her candid thoughts on pop culture, current news and controversies in front of a collection of show staffers.
Over on The View, Whoopi Goldberg offered an enthusiastic greeting at the top of the show. “Well, hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The View, y’all.” She turned to the empty grey chairs usually reserved for the show’s studio audience. “Welcome to The View, welcome to The View, welcome to The View,” she repeated, feigning an echo effect, as her greeting dissipated into the ether.
“The echo is real,” said her cohost Meghan Mccain.
This is the reality of daytime television amid growing fears about the novel coronavirus. As the number of confirmed cases in the United States hits the thousands, experts have recommended communities practice social distancing, avoiding large crowds and other non-essential interactions that could cause the virus to spread more quickly. The approach has caused widespread disruptions, from workplaces encouraging their employees to work from home to long-running music festivals altering their schedules — or cancelling altogether.
Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune were among the first shows to announce that they would be scrapping their typical live studio audiences. But the absence of crowds is particularly striking on the daytime talk-show circuit, which heavily incorporates the energy of audience members who gather to see their favourite hosts and react, in real time, to recurring segments, celebrity interviews or juicy spats between some of TV’S most recognizable personalities.
This week, many shows — including Strahan, Sara and Keke, Good Morning America and Live With Kelly and Ryan — all aired without their typical audiences.
Some, like Williams, turned to their own employees to avoid crickets. The daytime diva opened the show by passing out candy cigarettes. Because why not?
On Strahan, Sara and Keke, staffers cheered and danced as Michael Strahan explained the reason. “The great thing is, some of them — their parents didn’t even know they had a job, and we just put them on TV, so now your mama knows you got a job,” he said.
Goldberg said the decision to go without an audience was “unprecedented” on The View. But the talk show — like many other daytime staples — tapes in New York City, which has cancelled a number of highly attended events, including a half-marathon, as the number of confirmed cases has jumped to more than 200 statewide.
The View’s Joy Behar is taking some time away from the show, telling fans she’s in a “higher risk group” of catching the illness. The 77-year-old says she made the decision after reading the statistics about how many people in her risk category have become ill through the virus.
“I’m in a higher risk group because of my age, but I’m perfectly healthy,” she said. “I don’t look my age, but I’m actually up there. The number makes me dizzy.”
Williams, who also tapes in New York, shared mixed feelings about the decision to remove the audience from her show as she offered a rundown of the precautions people and businesses have taken amid what the World Health Organization has labelled a pandemic.
“I’m not sure I’m down with it. Part of me says the stats are going up,” she said. “But the other part of me says they might be creating mass hysteria, including telling me no audience. Even I didn’t go there.”
As The View panellists settled into their empty broadcast, Mccain admitted that she was “kind of into it,” adding that it may be because she comes from a news background and considers herself an introvert.
And the lack of audience didn’t stop the characteristically combative panel from sparring over politics.
“I think people are starting to recognize all over the country that this is no joke. This is not a leftwing conspiracy to get you-knowwho out of the White House,” Goldberg told her co-hosts. “This is real.”
Elisabeth Hasselbeck, a former View co-host and the episode’s guest host, was introduced as the show’s “OG conservative voice,” and she leaned into the role as she highlighted the “line between panic and ... precaution.
“We’ve had affected cases — those are serious. We’ve had deaths — those are serious,” she said. “And not to be taken lightly at all, but I also think that we shouldn’t be in a state of panic because what we’re doing, and taking cues from our president, is taking early, strong, bold actions to keep this at bay as much as we possibly can right now.”
“We’re still on the front end of this,” Hasselbeck added. “I feel comfortable and confident that because of strong leadership–”
“Where’s the strong leadership?” Joy Behar interrupted, as the panel started to argue over the administration’s handling of the situation. “He has told us nothing of any importance.”
Audience or no audience, some things never change.