..., but Busy Philipps vows to find her late-night talk show a new home

https://deadline.com/2019/05/e-cancels-busy-tonight-1202607831/

Philipps revealed the news that her Tina Fey-produced E! late-night talk show was getting axed on Twitter (https://twitter.com/BusyPhilipps/status/1125267376386166786) and in a late-night Instagram video (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6996523/Busy-Philipps-Busy-Tonight-axed-E-just-8-episodes-left-run-lame-late.html), adding that it was "lame" that there would only be "one woman in late night at a time." Busy Tonight premiered on Oct. 28, 2018. "Here’s the thing, you guys. My show, Busy Tonight is not going to continue on E! after May 16th," she said, according to Deadline. "They decided not to pick it up. Look, we’re meeting with people and seeing if there’s another place that makes sense for it to go. Because I would like to continue doing it. We would all like to figure out a way to continue to make it. It’s wild because we’ve only been doing the show for a relatively short period of time. In that time, I feel we’ve been able to accomplish so much creatively and I guess culturally and I think we’ve had a real point of view. I’m so proud of all of the things we’ve been able to do and I feel the show is really successful in that way but I don’t know what to say...We’ve talked to some people and we are trying to figure out if there’s a place that makes sense for our show to go to, and hopefully we will be able to figure that out. I think we will. I have faith in me. I hope that you know we can continue to do the show somewhere else. I hope that we figure that out, because it does seem lame that there would be just, like, just be one woman in late night at a time."

How Busy Philipps' Busy Tonight can be saved (https://www.indiewire.com/2019/05/busy-tonight-save-busy-philipps-late-night-talk-show-1202131388/)

It's clear now that E! wasn't the right home for Philipps' late-night talk show, says Kate Erbland, who suggests that Philipps tap into her social media savvy and lay off the celebrity interviews if her show finds a new home. "Whichever network (hopefully) snaps up Busy Tonight, it will have to grapple with some very necessary changes to get the show up to snuff," says Erbland. "The real rub: all the stuff that made Philipps such an appealing star (and not just on social media) was gradually squeezed out of the first season of the show. Philipps’ ability to share the minutiae of her life on Instagram and make it engaging, fun, and relatable was the key to her charm — it’s difficult to imagine another personality who could make videos taken during the sweaty height of her daily workouts so amusing, but Philipps did just that — and it’s hard to shake the sense that the host knows that that’s been missing from both her social media channels and her life lately."

ALSO:

E! cancels Busy Tonight on the same day Busy Philipps is nominated for a Critics' Choice Award (https://www.newsweek.com/e-cancels-busy-philipps-talk-show-1416122)
Busy Philipps deserves another chance: "Busy Tonight spreads positivity with its unique brand of humor and DGAF-ness" (https://decider.com/2019/05/06/busy-philipps-busy-tonight-canceled-live-on/)
It's frustrating that Samantha Bee is once again the only woman in late-night (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/05/busy-tonight-canceled-busy-philipps-instagram)

What a shame. :rolleyes:

Busy Philipps' "radical and liberating" Busy Tonight will be missed on late-night TV (https://www.vulture.com/2019/05/saying-goodbye-to-busy-tonight-for-now.html)

Philipps' love for her audience" is what I’ll miss most about Busy Tonight," says Bethy Squires of the E! late-night talk show's cancelation after six months. "She ended every show with a song and a sincere 'I love you' to camera, but every episode felt candid and chummy. This was the strength of Busy Tonight: the intimacy. Philipps might have been the first talk-show host to let the audience know every time she was on her period. It felt radical and liberating to have the host of a talk show be this transparent about her body and what its whole deal even was. From the beginning, Busy Tonight was uniquely itself: an ode to pop culture and issues usually too femme for the late-night Jameses. Sometimes monologue jokes can feel perfunctory on a standard-issue late-night show. You get the sense that the writers are covering a topic because it’s expected of them, not because they actually feel a need to share a certain story. Trump coverage often falls into this category. The hackiest president results in less-than-stellar material. Busy Philipps never said Trump’s name on her show. There was no need. We know who’s in office — what we don’t know is what was with the destination wedding in Made of Honor." Busy Tonight airs its final episode next Thursday. ALSO: Philipps discusses her decision to open up about her teenage abortion (https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/busy-philipps-abortion-story-busy-tonight-cancellation-1203211098/).

Busy Philipps on E! Show Cancellation: "I Wish I Had More Information"
by Lindsay Weinberg
Aug. 14, 2019


Busy Philipps hasn’t given up yet on her late-night talk show "Busy Tonight". It debuted Oct. 28 and aired its final episode on May 16, but in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Philipps, 40, said she’s currently strategizing on how she can revive it and what platform would give it its best life.

“I really believed and still believe in my show, in Busy Tonight. And I know that we were incredibly creative and culturally successful, even though we were cancelled. Many cancelled shows are those things. I am just trying to right now figure out the best way to move it forward,” she told THR, adding that she is still frustrated by certain aspects of the cancellation.

“I wish I would've known that I only had basically six weeks to get the ratings to where they had wanted them. I didn't know. I wished I had had more information from the network in terms of what they needed and were looking for in terms of milestones and ratings and things.”




As for a potential new home, streaming platforms are the talk of the town, but Philipps isn’t convinced pay walls are right for her audience.

“People are going to get fatigued by all the pay walls and by all the subscriptions that they have to purchase in order to watch content that they want to watch, and I think that that's a consideration for me in thinking about where I would want to put my show and how I would want to let people see it.”

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/rambling-reporter/busy-philipps-reflects-busy-tonight-cancellation-1231146

Busy Philipps shares an angry letter her 11-year-old daughter sent E! (https://people.com/parents/busy-philipps-angry-note-daughter-wrote-e-talk-show-cancelled/)

“You are the worst TV network ever,” Philipps' daughter Birdie wrote (https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/busy-phillips-is-annoying-af-posts-crying-selfies-messages-she-sent-to-e-boss-who-cancelled-show.3100335/) on May 7 following Busy Tonight's cancellation. Birdie then proceeded to list the reasons why E! is the "worst": “1. You got rid of my mom’s show. 2. You made a lot of people lose their jobs. 3. You suck.”