The Kardashians’ exit–
The news reverberated about the industry and many began speculating how the cable network and its parent company, NBCUniversal, would recoup perceived losses.
The following written content by Julius Young via Yahoo! Finance.
When Kim Kardashian announced to the world via Instagram that her family would no longer be headlining the slate of E! Entertainment shows after their last season of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” draws to a close in 2021, the news reverberated about the industry and many began speculating how the cable network and its parent company, NBCUniversal, would recoup perceived losses.
Having been a cornerstone of E!’s programming schedule since the series’ foray into reality television in 2007, “KUWTK” has enjoyed monumental success for nearly 20 seasons and hundreds of episodes, not including the multiple spinoff shows that have come and gone in years since.
According to experts, a large hurdle E! has to overcome is that for so many years, the cable channel has been a hub for round-the-clock entertainment news programming, which was anchored by its legacy news program, “E! News,” in addition to the viewership “KUWTK” consistently brought in.
Eric Schiffer, an author and leading expert in media and branding, believes that in order to mitigate losses from the lack of viewership and advertising dollars “KUWTK” brought E!, the network has to come up with a hook to pull folks in, and their new strategy may have to expand beyond just celebrity content.
“I think the biggest challenge for E! is entertainment relevance,” said Schiffer. “When your brand centers around entertainment and celebrity and you’ve now just had one of the most popular and fan-supported family brand jilt you, it’s a giant problem for them when they have very little, if any, additional programming.”
In Schiffer’s opinion, “E! is dealing with an excruciating lack of content at a time where they have become ever-dwindling in their entertainment relevance” in addition to COVID-19, which “has been a body blow and a danger to their connection with entertainment consumers,” he said. Read more from Yahoo! Finance.
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