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Daytime Derby in Full Swing for 2012 With Debuts of ‘Katie,’ ‘Jeff Probst,’ ‘Steve Harvey’ and Others — and One Show Hits a Home Run

Sep 11, 2012  •  Post A Comment

With a batch of premieres this week and last week, the daytime TV landscape has new syndicated talk shows popping up like mushrooms — and one of them is already way out in front of the pack, TheWrap.com reports.

The runaway leader at this early stage is Katie Couric’s new talk show "Katie," which bowed Monday with the strongest daytime premiere in 10 years, the story reports.

“Katie” tied the mark set by the premiere of "Dr. Phil" in September 2002.

“According to preliminary numbers, it beat last week’s premiere of ‘Steve Harvey’ by 87 percent, Monday’s premiere of ‘The Jeff Probst Show’ by 150 percent, and Monday’s premiere of ‘The Ricki Lake Show’ by 250 percent. It also beat the revamped ‘Anderson Live’ with Anderson Cooper by 115 percent,” the report says.

Monday’s "Katie" premiere, with guests Jessica Simpson and Sheryl Crow on hand, delivered a 2.8 household rating and an 8 share in 56 U.S. metered markets, the report notes, claiming the No. 1 or No. 2 position in its time period in all of the top 15 U.S. markets.

The “sudden” proliferation of new daytime talkers can be traced back to when Oprah Winfrey stepped down last year as daytime’s reigning talk queen — leaving her long-running syndicated show to focus on helping her new OWN cable network get off the ground.

Couric and Jeff Zucker, who previously produced NBC’s “Today” show when Couric was a fixture there, are executive producing "Katie," which is distributed by Disney-ABC Domestic Television.

"Ricki Lake" has faced an extra obstacle during premiere season, the story notes: A retransmission dispute between Tribune and Cablevision kept it off the air in 40% of the New York market.

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