The field of female-centric talk shows expands by one this fall when "The Real" joins "The View" and "The Talk" in catering to women and their diverse interests.
Diverse, in fact, is the watchword of "The Real," starring five women of various life experiences and ethnic perspectives.
Tamar Braxton, Tamera Mowry-Housley, Loni Love, Jeannie Mai and Adrienne Bailon "reflect the home audience and unapologetically say what women are actually thinking," producer Telepictures promises. "Their unique perspectives are brought to life through their candid conversations about topics ranging from their own personal lives to the news of the day to beauty, fashion and relationships."
But it's a fact of TV that this many women of color have probably never been brought together on a single show.
Braxton and Love are African-American. A singer, Braxton is a reality TV personality and sister of Toni Braxton. Love is a stand-up comic from Detroit. Mowry-Housley is mixed race, born in Germany and a former child star with her twin, Tia, on "Sister, Sister."
Mai, who is Asian-American, is a makeup artist and style consultant. Bailon is Latina, a singer-songwriter and actress. Executive producer SallyAnn Salsano is Italian-American from Long Island (and a Mizzou graduate) whose credits include "Jersey Shore."
The show is called "The Real" because, well, it's real, Salsano told TV critics on a visit to distributor Warner Brothers this summer.
"Their opinions aren't fake," she said. "It's not an option. And if they even try and pretend to be PC ... one of them will call the other out. It's not the topics, it's how they respond to it that's real."
"My hair is not real," Love interjected at that point.
"Most people won't admit to breast implants, and things like that," Mai added. "We keep it very real."
"And open," Love said.
So open, in fact, that Mai said she had to go over some of the topics in advance with her husband, "because he's like, 'I did not know you were going to put all that out there.' Because it involves him, and I don't realize it. But I'm so comfortable being real."
"That's it," Mowry-Housley concurred. "We're all naturally just real genuine people, you know, in our everyday lives. So for us, it's not like we're trying to be real. It's just who we are. And now we get to have fun with it. Because I know, as a kid, I always got slapped in the mouth."
"The Real" arrives as ABC's "The View," which originated the woman-talk format, undergoes the most dramatic change in its 17-year history.
After the retirement of co-creator and mainstay Barbara Walters and the announcement that Rosie O'Donnell would return, panelists Sherri Shepherd and Jenny McCarthy were fired or (depending on what you believe) resigned. That left only Whoopi Goldberg, the panel's moderator, to sit alongside O'Donnell.
Bill Geddie, Walters' co-creator and executive producer, is out as well, possibly because he didn't get along with O'Donnell during her previous tenure on the show, when she clashed with conservative panelist Elizabeth Hasselbeck, now with Fox News Channel.
With all the original panel members now gone (Joy Behar retired in 2013) and the new season set to begin on Sept. 15, ABC still has not said who will join Goldberg and O'Donnell, and by most accounts has not decided. On Thursday, the network announced that MSNBC's Bill Wolff will replace Geddie as executive producer.
ABC also has touted a remodel of the studio, including a new color scheme, a fresh logo and the addition of an "on camera social media station."
CBS' "The Talk," launched in 2010, went through something similar after its first season, when Leah Remini and Holly Robinson Peete departed. With Sheryl Underwood and Aisha Tyler alongside original panelist Sharon Osbourne and host Julie Chen, "The Talk" seems like a bastion of stability now, and this summer it surpassed "The View" with women 25-54, both shows' target demographic, for the first time. "The View" averages more total viewers, around 2.8 million to 2.6 million for "The Talk."
Still in the honeymoon phase, the panelists of "The Real" call themselves "a work in progress." As Love put it: "Even though I'm the oldest one on the panel, I'm still developing, still growing. And all of these ladies are doing that. So we're going to make mistakes along the way, which is interesting for the show, because, you know, we'll just admit those."
"Most shows are cast by Garanimals," Salsano said. "Like, OK, you're the funny one, you're the this, you're that. In this case ... we said we want to have a good show."
As Mowry-Housley put it, "What I really love about the show, and being a part of this show, is that it's not so much about color. It's about our personalities. It's a huge girl chat. We represent someone you know."
Someone you do know returns to television this fall in the new season's only other freshman talk show.
Meredith Vieira, the original moderator of "The View" and former co-host of NBC's "Today" show, launches "The Meredith Vieira Show" in syndication. In St. Louis, however, Vieira's show was squeezed for a time slot and wound up in the overnight hours at 2 a.m. weekdays on KSDK (Channel 5).
Vieira, who comes across as everyone's favorite next-door neighbor, told TV critics at a panel in Los Angeles this summer that she found the title of the show "really scary, to be honest with you."
She lobbied for a different title, she said, "but the executives came back and said, 'What do you want it call it, then?' And we couldn't come up with anything else. It's humbling, but ... hopefully it will be a reflection of my authenticity, because people who know me and know that name, I think they know what they're going to get. I've been doing this for 40 years, and I am who I am."
As with "The Real," Vieira believes that authenticity is the key factor for her show.
"That's the keyword with an audience," she said. "I think they can smell a fake a mile away. They want real, and they want to connect with somebody."
She has been struck, she said, by "how significant daytime television is to the viewers. They connect with it in such a personal way. They feel that kind of connective tissue that I don't think you find in other times of the day. I think if you're able to really reach your audience and connect and give them a voice and a reason to watch, then, hopefully, you'll be a success."
Vieira will have a band, led by Everett Bradley of the E-Street band with four women musicians. She'll have dogs, who will be paired with recipients as service dogs.
And Vieira will have a set that looks like her own living room, she said, complete with furniture shabbied up to look like her own, wrecked by her cats and dog.
"A lot of people have torn up stuff, and they're going to feel so much better about their own furniture when they see my junk on that set."
{&rule}When to watch
'The Real' • 11 a.m. weekdays on KPLR (Channel 11) beginning Sept. 15, thereal.com
'The View' • 10 a.m. weekdays on ABC (new season begins Sept. 15), abc.com/theview
'The Talk' • 1 p.m. weekdays on CBS (new season begins Sept. 9), cbs.com/thetalk
'Meredith Vieira' • 2 a.m. weeknights on KSDK (Channel 5) beginning Sept. 9, meredithvieirashow.com
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