With 5 TV Shows, Steve Harvey Is the King of Content

On the eve of the upfronts, the busiest man in TV talks about his five (yes, five) shows, what else he has in the works and Miss Universe.

- Jason Lynch

NBC’s Sunday night audience vanishes after Sunday Night Football concludes each January, so the network had modest expectations for the 18-49 demo performance of Steve Harvey’s variety series Little Big Shots before it premiered in March. 

“I was told by some folks at NBC, ‘We want a 1.2 [rating], and we’re going to be tipping champagne glasses,’” Harvey recalls. Instead, the numbers for his America’s Got Talent/Kids Say the Darndest Things hybrid, in which talented children from around the world show off their skills and swap zingers with Harvey, more than doubled that during its first Sunday airing: a 2.8 rating, with 15 million total viewers tuning in. The surprise midseason hit ended up as the network’s No. 2 show this season in both total viewers and 18-49 (behind only The Voice) and kept the bubbly flowing at the network. “They’re drunk right now at NBC,” says Harvey, laughing as he reels off the names of top brass at NBC and its parent company. “I know for a fact Paul Telegdy is drunk right now—and Bob Greenblatt, Steve Burke from Comcast and Ted Harbert.”

Those men are in good company. When Harvey’s syndicated game show Family Feud achieved a 2 household rating during its first season in 2010-11, it also had producer FremantleMedia North America (and Twentieth Television, which handles ad sales) popping corks. The celebration continued as Feud’s ratings soared in subsequent seasons, topping out at a 7.5 in January. “They’re way more drunk than the people at Little Big Shots,” Harvey cracks. “Everybody’s drunk because of Steve Harvey right now!”