There are several families in Hollywood that I absolutely love, including the Sheens, the Murphys (RIP Charlie Murphy), the Southerlands, and the Baldwins. Well, one of my favorite, and likely the most famous of the Baldwin clan, Alec, has been slated to host a new television talk show for ABC. This comes on the heels of ABC being shaken up as its parent company, Disney, looks to improve its positioning in film and television to compete with Netflix.
The show will be entitled, “Sundays with Alec Baldwin.” In an effort to give viewers a sneak peek of what the show will offer, a special episode will air immediately after the Academy Awards on Sunday at 11:35 EST. The sneak-peek will be followed by a total of eight additional shows to be aired at a later time in the year.
The show will be centered on a set of one-on-one conversations between Alec and some of the top pop culture icons of the day. The show will be modeled after Alec’s WNYC podcast, “Here’s The Thing with Alec Baldwin.” It turns out that this podcast has become quite popular and ABC is hoping to build off of the show momentum and fanbase that the podcast has generated.
According to sources closest to Balwin, it was he who first approach the executives at ABC and asked for an opportunity to transition the momentum from the podcast to a live situation in front of a camera. It is not certain if the energy that is created during the podcast will be easily translated to viewership. There are things that you can do during a podcast or radio broadcast that you cannot do during a shooting of a television talk show. I am not sure if this will impact the show or not, but it is definitely something that the executives and producers have given serious consideration.
Balwin has openly admitted that he is very excited about the opportunity to do the show on television and he is very appreciative of the chance that ABC executives have taken with giving him this platform. When you have been in the game for as long as Balwin, things can become somewhat monotonous, and you will begin to look for ways to spice things up. It seems that Baldwin may have just found the new excitement he needs to spice things up at this point in his life.
The first interview that Jerry will do on the show will be a comedic legend, Jerry Seinfeld. Talking about getting off to a good start, ABC is not pulling any punches. There will be other cultural icons including Kate McKinnon.
What makes this show have so much appeal is the fact that Alec’s wit, life experience, and intellect separates him from the average talk show host – meaning that there is no way of predicting where these conversations will end up going. Channing Dungey, the president of ABC Entertainment, admitted that after shooting the pilot for the show they knew that they had stumbled upon something immensely special.
This is not Alec’s first talk show opportunity. He once hosted Up Late with Alec Baldwin on MSNBC.
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