Since her inaugural win on “American Idol” two decades ago, Kelly Clarkson has grown rapidly to occupy a coveted position in the music industry. public consciousness As one of the country’s leading sweethearts. She dominated the Billboard charts, won three Grammys and served as a judge on NBC’s “The Voice.” Now, with five Daytime Emmys under her belt, Multihyphenate is looking to stand her as the go-to day host with the talk show of her eponymous network on the same network, Time Slot Which catapulted Ellen DeGeneres to daytime royalty in the form of “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” which goes deeper into its fourth season.
“She’s a natural connector, she’s naturally curious — that’s a great thing for the day,” Alex Duda, who served as showrunner and executive producer with Clarkson, told TheWrap. And he is a fan. She loves art and she loves stories about art, and as an artist, she looks to fix art. So it came in handy, especially in the last few years when we are going through a pandemic. ,
Duda, whose background in executive talk-show production stems from his time in the world of reality TV and shows such as “The Steve Harvey Show” and “The Tyra Banks Show”, said Clarkson’s series featured singers as a musician. -Plays to the strength of the star and is an effective communicator.
When in doubt, the producers go back to the adage of “connection and music and positivity” and so the show begins with a song cover of Clarkson’s signature “Kellyok” segment. Duda says that on a typical day with the host she would sit in a makeup chair with headphones on, as she listens to musical arrangements that have been composed for her by longtime music director Jason Helbert.
With 180 episodes and “Kellyok” segments in a season, producers work two weeks out of airdate to arrange six tracks (each episode taped per week), cut to one and a half minutes for TV. After that, Halbert and vocal director Jesse Collins created a scratch guide (or reference track) for Clarkson and the band, which receives a rehearsal prior to recording.
“The morning of the show, I send Kelly two references to her, usually around 6:30 and when she’s in glam, she listens to the songs and then she comes on stage and maybe rehearses them once and Then we do it,” explained Halbert, adding that it’s important to be “agile” when songs need to change from day to day without pre-made context.
As “The Kelly Clarkson Show” aims to hit the right notes in its fourth season (which premiered on September 12) and replaces the iconic day, Duda compared the experience to the start of a college trip, In which the program was introducing new sections and going deeper. With his story of human interest.
“What was important to us as we moved into these new time slots was that we knew we were moving too often later, and we were leading the news for a lot of our partner stations, and so we wanted to be good. There were partners and good news lead-ins,” she explained, adding that the show would sometimes tap into markets to cross-promote other projects for mutual benefit.
Some of the new material includes an emphasis on celebrity panel segments, featuring the cast of Netflix’s “The School for Good and Evil” or Apple’s “CODA” as lead-ins in cash-based competition shows. The chain has also started an initiative called good neighbor, which highlights everyday people who are making strides for their community. As for “Kellioak,” everyone from Dwayne Johnson to Sam Smith is wanted.
Coming out, the singer will be singing a duet on the show with none other than Dolly Parton, with whom she most recently performed the latter’s iconic “9 to 5.” Recorded a new form of Halbert said part of the show’s development is exemplified by the singing segment’s success in clearing tracks for television from artists such as Florence + The Machine, Mumford & Sons and Prince Estate, who have previously denied their use.
Per NBCUniversal, “The Kelly Clarkson Show” is the only syndicated talk show to grow in consecutive seasons since 2014 and the only one among the top 3 to grow year over year. So far averaging 1.3 million daily viewers, the show has also grown into major showings locally, with double-digit year-over-year growth of between 25-54 adults in several top markets.
But ultimately, Duda said the show prioritizes its narrative aspects, always going back to Clarkson’s roots, such as her time in the Nashville music scene with a recent segment on the artist collective. The Song House,
“We try to tell good stories, and I think there’s always a win in the end,” Duda said. “beginning, middle and end as far as human interest is concerned” [part]And people just want to feel better on our show.”
Also, the show is set to explore more serious issues that have gained their footing as well. one in section Last month, Clarkson — a native Texan — traveled to Uvalde with veteran newscaster Lester Holt to highlight the community’s process of grief and healing through art.
“It felt important as a mom, and we have Lester and it felt like the perfect combination for the panel,” Duda recalled. “And the way we told that story was through a group of artists who were painting murals of all the victims all over town, to give families a place where they were happy. [could] Remember all the great things about your baby, and it was a really tough day, but I think it was an important day for us.”
When it comes to the technical aspects of stitching together a successful day’s schedule, Duda said that preparation time for the series is “essential”, which allows the storytelling through the various guests and segments in a given show. Working together in booking and production departments to do farming. Then, on the day of, it’s all about efficiency: getting guests in and out and taking advantage of the free-flowing movement of tape, which can and often does throw a film out of order by being syndicated rather than a live show. .
Often, “The Kelly Clarkson Show” will do a full run-through interview with a guest, later selecting a pickup for a commercial break. Duda credited Clarkson for tracking their consistency as host and the entire team, in order to pat each other’s backs for making decisions “on the fly”.
“You always go with a script so you know what you want, but you have to be open to getting it where it wants to go because you can get something better,” Duda said. “So the trick is listening. And that’s the trick to being a good listener for any talk show host anyway.”
