A tabloid talk show is a subgenre of the talk show genre that emphasizes controversial and sensationalistic topical subject matter. The subgenre originated in the United States and achieved peak viewership from the mid-1980s through the end of the 1990s. Airing mostly during the day and distributed mostly through television syndication, tabloid talk shows originated in the 1960s and early 1970s with series hosted by Joe Pyne, Les Crane, and Phil Donahue; the format was popularized by personal confession-filled The Oprah Winfrey Show, which debuted nationally in 1986. The format has since been emulated outside the United States, with the United Kingdom, Latin America and the Philippines all having popular shows that fit the format. Tabloid talk shows have sometimes been described as the "freak shows" of the late 20th century, since most of their guests were outside the mainstream. The host invites a group of guests to discuss an emotional or provocative topic and the guests are encouraged to make public confessions and resolve their problems with on-camera "group therapy". Similar shows are popular throughout Europe. Tabloid talk shows are sometimes described using the pejorative slang term "trash TV", particularly when producers appear to design their shows to create controversy or confrontation, as in the case of The Richard Bey Show, Geraldo (such as when a 1988 show featuring Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and anti-racism and Jewish activists led to an on-camera brawl) and Jerry Springer, which focused on lurid trysts – often between family members. Vicki Abt, a professor of sociology and American studies, criticized tabloid TV shows, claiming that they had blurred the lines between normal and deviant behavior. The genre experienced a particular spike during the 1990s, when a large number of such shows were on the air, but which gradually gave way during the 2000s to a more universally appealing form of talk show. The last remaining tabloid shows in the United States were cancelled in 2026.
History
The Les Crane Show, a network talk show that aired on ABC as part of its late-night schedule from August 1964 to February 1965, was the first talk show to follow the format. Host Les Crane would bring on controversial guests, interview them in an aggressive but fair style, and take questions from the audience. Crane was the first to interview an openly gay man on-air and frequently interviewed black celebrities, folk singers and other taboo guests; Crane was rebuffed in his efforts to interview lesbians on one of his shows. The format was designed as competition to NBC's long-running franchise, Tonight, and its hard style contrasted with Tonight's more comedic format. The show generated significant controversy and was canceled after six months, later being retooled into a lighter talk show in an effort to boost ratings. Joe Pyne, a Los Angeles-based host, also hosted a similar talk show in syndication, although the focus was more on his confrontations with guests and less on audience participation. The early years of NBC's late-night series Tomorrow with Tom Snyder covered similar tabloid topics without a studio audience (as Tom Snyder did not believe he provided anything an audience would want to see in-person), before the show took on a more celebrity-driven format when Snyder moved to New York City in 1975. In Chicago, Lee Phillip Bell occasionally addressed controversial topics within the context of her long-running talk show as early as the late 1950s, but her show did not have a studio audience. Tabloid talk shows often post a "cart" during an episode in order to recruit guests. According to Elizabeth Kolbert of The New York Times: "Almost all the talk shows, from Sally to Ricki Lake, post notices, known as 'carts,' in the middle of a show that ask viewers to call if they have, for example, 'been trying to tell a loved one that their spouse or lover is cheating' (The Maury Povich Show), or if they're 'going crazy' because their parents have split up (Donahue)."
Trash TV
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