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Drew Barrymore will break free of the conventions of TV talk as she launches the seventh season of her CBS-produced daytime program.
Barrymore and her producers are launching a second program – a YouTube interview series
– that will function both as a segment for TV and a stand-alone attraction for digital viewers. “Personal Space” has Barrymore doing long-form, intimate exchanges with guests — and no audience — with the full conversation available online.
“It will look different than our studio show, and it will really give her and the guests the opportunity to have these really amazing conversations without interruption,” says Jason Kurtz, who is, like Barrymore, an executive producer of the series. The new “Personal Space,” he says is “a little bit more aligned with video podcasts, which we know is part of the ecosystem.”
New episodes will be distributed once a week via the show’s YouTube channel and aims to give fans something they can’t get on traditional TV. “When you look at broadcast, it’s hard to do that because the segments are eight minutes, four minutes, and can’t expand.”
Producers have reason to try and grab more time with Barrymore’s viewers. The syndicated show was renewed in March for two more seasons across stations owned by CBS, Nexstar and Sinclair, and gained time-slot upgrades in Seattle, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Charlotte, Baltimore, Kansas City and Cincinnati. It’s also no secret that Barrymore’s show enters the new TV season without a key daytime competitor on the schedule, now that Kelly Clarkson has ended her syndicated NBC showcase.
Producers simply want to be “just a little more in the forefront of where people are consuming,” says Kurtz. And the launch of the new series nods to the growing attachment people have for video podcaststhat features hosts in less professional and less glamorous settings.
The host aims to start the series’ next cycle off with some fireworks. Barrymore and producers had the show’s set on hand at Olivia Rodrigo’s recent Daisy Chain Fields Festival, resulting in a week’s worth of segments with the musician as well as performers including Sarah McLachlan, Shirley Manson, Mitski and Bikini Kill.
Staffers have also devised some intriguing ways to call attention to the show as it ramps up for the fall. A limited-edition butter schmear, Drew’s Berry-More Butter, was created in collaboration with Pop Up Bagels, and will be available at all locations between September 17 and 30. The show is teaming up with Nextdoor for a season-long nationwide “Drew-Gooder” initiative that spotlights inspiring people making a difference in their communities. And a partnership with Geeks Who Drink Pub Quizzes will bring Drew-inspired trivia to venues across the country.
Producers believe Barrymore has a significant audience that watches her on social media, says Kurtz, and that has spurred the program to take new swings even as the show matures. “Drew is so unfiltered and the broadcast audience loves it. The social audience loves it,” he says. Viewers want someone who is authentic, and “they don’t want the patina, they don’t want the BS,” he says. “They just want real.”
