‘JHud’ talker gets renewed

“The Jennifer Hudson Show” has been renewed for a fourth season, Warner Bros. Television Group announced Feb. 19, 2025.

Hosted by EGOT Jennifer Hudson, the talk show has been posting growth in viewership since it launched in 2022, with WBTG saying it is “gaining momentum.”

It has been performing especially well for female audiences ages 18-34, where it often occupies the second place talk show finish in this group behind “Live with Kelly and Mark,” according to 2024 data, rising from tenth place int he category and demo from the previous year. Performance is also up in the broader adults 25-54 demo.

Overall, numbers had been hovering around 1 million total viewers.

In its announcement, WBTG trumpets the figure of 6 million viewers in the key demo, but that figure is counting how many unique people the show reached over the course of a time period (it the show averaged 6 million viewers in just the demo, it would rate higher than recent seasons of “American Idol”).

In other words, one viewer who tuned into the show once and never watched it again could be counted in that figure.

It is not clear what time period that figure was pulled from. That said, “Hudson” has been retaining about 94% of its audience year over year, with only “The Kelly Clarkson Show” exceeding it at 98%. The average for U.S. syndicated talkers is around 83%, according to Nielsen figured reported by The Wrap.

Like many talkers and comedy shows, “Hudson” also benefits from posting its clips and exclusive content to digital platforms, including social media. During the current third season, followers are up 103% across all social networks, with impressions up an impressive 627% to 777 million, according to the WBTG.

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“Hudson” airs in most markets across the U.S., including Fox-owned stations in major markets. 

With a Season 4 pickup, the show will now run through at least the end of the 2025-2026 season.

The renewal follows news that Disney’s “Tamron Hall” is getting a seventh season. NBCUniversal’s “Clarkson” was renewed in December 2024 for a seventh season and “The Drew Barrymore Show” got an early Season 6 renewal back in August 2024.

“Drew” also got key timeslot upgrades at CBS-owned stations, including some stations expanding to show the full hour of the show.

“Drew” is somewhat unique in that it switched to a format in 2023 that allowed stations to air a 30-minute version of the show or the full 60-minute version. In some cases, the second half-hour would air on a different station in the same market. Part of the idea behind this plan was to allow stations to air a 30-minute block of local news just before “Drew,” but that has largely been discontinued, with most CBS-owned stations now showing the full show during one hour.

The syndicated talk show market has also been a bit fickle, with many shows entering development or production in any year and often only lasting a year or two.

For years, the space was dominated by Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres, but both shows have since ended. Today, “Tamron,” “Clarkson,” “Sherri,” “Drew,” “Hudson” and “Karamo” are among the leaders in the category.

Even harder hit have been court TV shows, with both “The People’s Court,” “Judge Mathis” and “Judge Judy” all ending within the past few years as shifting viewer habits made these programs less appealing to advertisers, though episodes of these series still appear on schedules. This episodes feature old content, sometimes with cases rearranged to form “new” episodes, but none of these shows remain in active production. Judges from all three of these series have also moved on to other shows.