The Ellen DeGeneres Show

Season 15 Vuzu (*116) 17:00 Talkshow

Ellen DeGeneres has put her stand-up career on hold and for the last 15 years, she’s been calling the shots as the host of her celeb-themed talkshow The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2003-current). The 60-year-old admits that getting into chat TV was daunting, but after “tea and cake” with talkshow TV queen Oprah Winfrey, “I knew this was a walk in the park. I could take her on any day,” jokes Ellen.

Of the 2 548 episodes (as of Friday 1 2 February), Ellen has only missed two – she was hospitalised for an undisclosed illness in January 2014 and again in September 2016. It’s filmed at the Warner Bros stu2 dios in Hollywood and Ellen often gives tickets away to visitors who’re on studio visits. She has also built a special “15 minutes of fame” room where celeb guests sometimes mingle with a couple of lucky studio audience members. 3 The show has been so popular and made so much money for network bosses that they renamed the studio building “The Ellen Stage” in 2015 after the show taped its 2 000th episode. 4 Only one other talkshow has more viewers than Ellen’s 2.9 million per episode – that is The Dr Phil Show (2002-current), which has 4.4 million. The Ellen DeGeneres Show has a 5 reality spin-off called Ellen’s Game Of Games (2017-current), based on the various gaming activities on the main show. Game Of Games was renewed for a season 2 in January this year after the first episode was previewed by Ellen. 6 And Ellen’s salary for her show’s success and her hosting job? A cool $50 million (R600 million) per year.