The Wendy Williams Show


The Wendy Williams Show is an American syndicated infotainment talk show created and hosted by Wendy Williams and produced by Wendy Williams Productions, and Perler Productions. The Wendy Williams Show is distributed by Debmar-Mercury, the show aired starting July 14, 2008 in select major U.S. markets and July 13, 2009 nationwide. It primarily aired on Fox, CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates. Wendy is broadcast live in front of a studio audience on Mondays through Thursdays. The Friday shows are either a first-run episode originally taped after the Thursday for broadcast the next day, or a repeat of the previous Monday's episode. The show regularly competes with The Ellen DeGeneres Show as the top-ranked syndicated talk show with a single female host in the key demographic of women 25–54 in the United States.

Format

The program is formatted as an entertainment-based talk show, focusing largely on celebrity news and gossip as well as lifestyle features.
Each episode begins with "Hot Topics," an opening segment — usually running 18 to 21 minutes, depending on the number of stories featured — in which Williams mainly discusses tabloid headlines and celebrity news, and provides her opinions — often addressing the celebrities directly and giving them advice to the camera. The segment incorporates a heavier emphasis on stories about reality stars and African-American entertainers than are covered on traditional entertainment newsmagazine programs. Occasionally, the topics incorporated into the segment may involve current issues and offbeat news items not related to the entertainment industry; Williams periodically deviates from the topic to elaborate on a particular aspect of it that relates to her own life. The studio audience have some active participation in the segment, with Williams often surveying them through applause about a particular point of the story being discussed.
Periodic segments-within-a-segment are featured during "Hot Topics" including "Wendy's Got You Covered", the "Hot Shot of the Day", the "Clip of the Day" and "Celebrity Shout-Out".
In addition to "Hot Topics", the program included other in-depth topical segments incorporating guest contributors including the
The remainder of the program heavily incorporates feature segments including "Ask Wendy", "Celebrity Fan-Out", "Celebrity Lookalikes", "Hot Topics Sound-Off" and "Street Talk".
On the Tuesday and Wednesday editions, Williams interviews a single featured celebrity guest; musical performances are featured occasionally. The show regularly features product giveaways, usually as part of "Trendy@Wendy", a weekly segment showcasing fashion/beauty products and electronics that are given to studio audience members, with at-home viewers being able to purchase the featured items through the show's website at a discount from their estimated retail price.

Production and distribution

On April 21, 2008, Fox Television Stations ordered a test run of the show for the group's Fox owned-and-operated stations to air after their local weekday morning newscasts. The Wendy Williams Show premiered on July 14, 2008 as a six-week trial run on four Fox-owned outlets: WNYW/New York City, KTTV/Los Angeles, WJBK/Detroit and KDFW/Dallas-Fort Worth.
After the test run concluded, Debmar-Mercury picked up the program for a full nationwide launch, and through additional station group pickups, gained carriage on stations covering more than 95% of the country including all of the 20 largest media markets and 45 of the top 50 markets. On June 4, 2009, BET acquired the cable syndication rights to the show, airing it as part of the cable channel's late night schedule. The Wendy Williams Show entered into national syndication on broadcast stations and on BET on July 13, 2009 before being cancelled from the network on September 15, 2017. It then moved to the rebranded BET Her at the start of the 2017–18 season for one additional season until it was cancelled again in the late summer 2018. In the 2018–19 season, the last-day episodes previously aired on Pop for the first only season and was cancelled for the final time. Also, the show now airs on Bounce TV.
The Wendy Williams Show went on a 17-city "Say It Like You Mean It" promotional tour across the United States in the summer of 2011, presenting mini-versions of the show at local malls. Williams went on a 10-city tour during the summer of 2018, to celebrate the tenth season of the show.
On May 4, 2013, Fox Television Stations announced a deal with Debmar-Mercury to renew the show through the 2016–17 television season. In April 2019, Debmar-Mercury began distributing with CBS Television Studios, following 20th Century Fox being bought by Walt Disney.
The show debuted outside the United States on BET International in July 2010 in markets like UK and Africa. In the UK, Wendy remains the most watched show on BET where it is shown a total of four times a day.
On September 16, 2019, Williams announced on the eleventh-season premiere that the series had been renewed through 2022, bringing the series to its thirteenth season.
In March 2020, production on the series was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2020, it was announced the series would return to television beginning April 6, with the show being taped from Williams home.
On July 21, 2020, it was announced that the show will return for its twelfth season which will premiere on September 12, 2020.

Incidents

On October 31, 2017, Williams, dressed in a Statue of Liberty costume on the Halloween episode, unexpectedly fainted during the live telecast when about to announce the winners of the show's Halloween contest. The episode then went into an extended commercial break. Williams resumed stating, "That was not a stunt. I overheated and did pass out, but I'm a champ and I'm back." Williams and her spokesperson cited heat exhaustion from her costume as the cause.
In February 2018, Williams canceled three shows due to illness. On February 21, Williams announced that she was taking a three-week hiatus, due to health issues. In March, actor Jerry O'Connell served as guest host during her absence, despite Williams insisting in previous years her show would never utilize a guest host. Williams returned on March 19. She went on an indefinite hiatus in January and February 2019 after a shoulder injury and worsening complications from Graves' disease and other personal issues. This time around, several guest hosts such as, Keke Palmer, Nick Cannon, former "View" panelist Sherri Shepherd and O'Connell filled the slot until Williams was well enough to return. Williams returned to her show on March 4, 2019. Williams noted on the March 19 episode of her show that she had also begun treatment for a decades-old cocaine addiction and was living in a sober house when not hosting her show.

Controversies

Homophobic remarks

On February 13, 2020, during her opening Hot Topics segment, Williams asked the audience if they would be celebrating "Galentine's Day", an alternative holiday for Valentine's Day originally created and popularized by a 2010 episode of the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. After the audience applauded, she remarked:
She added:
The comments were met by praise and applause from the audience, but received backlash online, with many calling the quotes homophobic. The following day, Williams issued an apology in a Twitter video.

Amie Harwick

On February 17, 2020, Williams made a joke about Dr. Amie Harwick, a Hollywood sex therapist who had died on February 15 after injuries sustained from being pushed off a three-story balcony. She had previously been engaged to The Price Is Right host Drew Carey, but they broke it off the following year. On her show, Williams uttered the famous catchphrase from the show, "Come on down!" and looked down, pretending to watch someone fall to the ground. The joke was met with a mostly quiet response from the audience, but drew heavy backlash online. Many called her joke insensitive and mocking to Harwick.

Awards and recognition

Daytime Emmys