14 DAY TRIAL // Hate her or love her but Chelsea Handler still brings in the ratings with E!’s Chelsea Lately night talk show. She might not set records with them but, for the past 8 years, she’s been delivering constantly. At the end of 2014, there will be no more Chelsea Lately.
Handler’s manager Irving Azoff confirms for The Hollywood Reporter that, once her current contract expires, she will probably not return to E! because she’s already considering her options for the future.
“Chelsea intends to leave when her contract expires. She hired me to figure out her life after E! We have at least seven suitors and many ideas,” Azoff says, adding that Handler might even move to the radio, if another network won’t give her a late night talk show.
Handler has been bad-mouthing E! for at least the past month, even saying in an interview with Howard Stern earlier this month that it was a “sad, sad place to live,” a “failure” where no one knew what they were doing. She was probably referring to the rebranding changes now underway at E! but she might have also been playing the nasty card as part of the negotiations game.
E! would only confirm that, indeed, Handler’s contract is up at the end of the year, saying in a statement to THR that it’s not in the habit of commenting on ongoing negotiations.
Insiders with the network, though, are saying off the record that Handler’s current behavior and particularly the fact that she’s trash-talking her employers should act as a warning for anyone who might consider hiring her: talent should never bad-mouth the network they’re working for, even if they’re thinking of leaving in a few months’ time.
Handler, on the other hand, thinks she’s on a roll and no one can touch her.
“Handler is said to feel that she is at the top of her game with a new book, Uganda be Kidding Me – her first to sit at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list for more than a week. She is in the midst of a tour of more than 30 markets, ‘a massive piece of business’ that also will include dates overseas, according to Geof Wills, president of Live Nation Comedy. She will shoot her first stand-up special at the Harris Theatre in Chicago in June to air on cable in October,” THR says.
She also has a solid record with her talk show, which, as noted above, though it’s seen a dip in ratings in recent months, is still faring decently. Azoff is of the opinion that figures released don’t really reflect the reality of her viewership.
“Handler is said to be making about $9 million [€6.5 million] a year while delivering average viewership of 572,000 a night – a decline from 839,000 in 2010. Ad revenue also has dipped more than 15 percent in recent years to $134.5 million [€97.8 million], according to Kantar Media. But Handler is the lone female late-night host with a proven track record amid a sea of male hosts across broadcast and cable,” THR reports.
In other words, she must strike while the iron’s still hot and move to greener pastures.