E! News, Pop of the Morning and In the Room have all been canceled by NBCUniversal, as part of cutbacks at E!. Scott Tweedie and Lilliana Vazquez, who are the current hosts of E! News, have both reacted to their show being canned, and details are starting to emerge about why the show is ending after nearly three decades.
Writing on her Instagram, Vazquez, who joined the show last year, said on Instagram: "Thankful for this incredible adventure and I will miss this team and crew beyond belief. Yes...even the 4am call time." Tweedie, meanwhile, told TVTonight that he was staying within E! and would soon host a new show.
Variety reported two factors for why E! News is ending: The economic impact of the coronavirus and what they called an effort to "streamline [NBCUniversal] programming and restructure internally to create more efficiencies."
What this actually means is that NBCUniversal, who owns E!, is focusing less on making traditional TV and more on streaming, following the launch of the Peacock service earlier this year. A source also confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that the "financial fallout caused by the coronavirus" played a large part in the shows coming to an end.
Earlier in the week, NBCUniversal had said they were planning on making cutbacks, and the trio of E! shows have been some of the first casualties of this.
In July, NBCU CEO Jeff Shell said in an investor's call that the coronavirus had only made worse a downward trend in their television business. He said: "It is said that crises tend to accelerate and exacerbate trends, and that is certainly true in the television business." In the call, layoffs were teased after parent company Comcast reported a $506 million loss on adjusted earnings for the quarter.
According to the Wall Street Journal, up to 10 percent of NBCUniversal staff could be laid off due to the impact of the coronavirus, which had previously lead the company to shut down production of over 30 of its shows.
In 2019, E! News had moved from an L.A. evening show to a New York morning show. Pop of the Morning (which was also hosted by Tweedie) was based in New York. However, E! production will return to Los Angeles in the wake of these cancelations.
E! News first debuted on September 1, 1991, and since then over 7,500 episodes have been made. Dagny Hultgreen originally hosted the entertainment news show, with other hosts taking over including Ryan Seacrest, Giuliana Rancic, and Maria Menounos over the subsequent years.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
