When the People’s Choice Awards returns to TV for its 44th year on Nov. 11, it will be the first time the franchise won’t be on CBS. That’s because Procter & Gamble sold the telecast to E!, the Comcast-owned cable network ready to evolve from red-carpet host to an awards show of its very own.
In this week’s episode of the Variety podcast “Strictly Business,” E! president Adam Stotsky explained that he jumped at the chance to acquire People’s Choice because his network’s brand matched that of the awards franchise.
“We are all about reflecting the current tastes and interests of our audience, and People’s Choice Awards for 43 years has always been about that,” he noted. “We saw 40 years of equity, we saw 40 years of history, and we saw an idea, a concept of ‘for the people, by the people’ that felt decidedly E!”
That said, Stotsky cautioned to expect a very different show from the one CBS has been putting on for the past four decades because the network and the show’s producers “spent the better part of the last year stripping the franchise down to the studs and re-imagining it through the less of E!, re-imagining where we think awards shows are going, and re-imagining it for a global audience.”
Stotsky also addresses other recent changes at E!, from the addition of topical talk shows like “Busy Tonight” to the future of the Kardashians on his network.
“Strictly Business” is Variety‘s weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of entertainment. Listen to the podcast above for the full interview, or check out previous “Strictly Business” episodes featuring comedian/actor/producer Kevin Hart, ICM Partners agent Esther Newberg, and HBO chairman/CEO Richard Plepler. A new episode debuts each Tuesday and can be downloaded on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, and SoundCloud.