The View, Live With Kelly and Ryan and Tamron Hall suspend studio audiences amid Coronavirus fears

More and more television shows are suspending shooting with live studio audiences amid a growing fear over the novel coronavirus.

New York based shows The View, Live With Kelly and Ryan and Tamron Hall announced Wednesday that they would move forward in the coming weeks with new shows but without an audience.

‘Given the current developing situation in New York City, we have made the decision to suspend live audiences from attending our news broadcasts and talk shows,’ a WDT spokesperson said in a statement to Deadline.

The absence of an audience will likely be felt more intensely on shows like Live with Kelly and Ryan as the hosts and the guests typically interact with the crowd. 

In a social media video encouraging people to wash their hands, Live with Kelly and Ryan showed the empty seats usually filled with excited viewers.

Wendy Williams, who also shoots in Manhattan, announced on Tuesday that she was suspending her studio audience as well.

‘Wendy values her co-hosts and their daily participation, but in light of the current health climate, The Wendy Williams Show will not have a live studio audience until further notice,’ the show said in a statement. 

‘We will continue to produce a daily live talk show and look forward to welcoming the studio audience back when the time is right.’ 

On Wednesday’s live show, Wendy was joined by about three dozen staffers who sat in the audience seats. 

‘These are the people who support me and this entire production every day,’ she said. ‘And the ones who aren’t here, it’s only because they’re in the control room pushing buttons or answering the front phone.’ 

Most of the programs on the late night talk show circuit (based primarily out of New York City) will cease having studio audiences present beginning next week. 

Among the shows impacted include The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (CBS), The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (NBC), Late Night With Seth Meyers (NBC) and The Daily Show With Trevor Noah (Comedy Central), with the new changes coming into place beginning Monday, the networks confirmed this week. 

‘The safety of our guests and employees is our top priority,’ NBC on Wednesday said in a statement, adding, ‘the company is hoping to do its part to help to decrease the rate of transmission in our communities.’

CBS said in a statement that their move was made ‘out of an abundance of caution regarding the spread of the COVID-19 virus and the uncertainty of the situation for future weeks.’

Other Big Apple-based programs that will not have studio audiences are Last Week Tonight (HBO), Full Frontal With Samantha Bee (TBS) and Watch What Happens Live (Bravo).  

Rachael Ray is skipping having audiences for a week of upcoming shows at her NYC studio before a planned hiatus. There are currently nearly 200 confirmed cases of coronavirus in New York.

Another production impacted by the outbreak is MTV’s Making the Band, which has halted two auditions it was slated to conduct this month, on Friday in Charlotte, North Carolina (which would have featured DaBaby) and in New York City (which would have featured Diddy) on March 21.

‘Safety remains our utmost priority, and we’re continuing to defer to health officials and the CDC for guidance,’ the network said, adding that auditions will still be collected online.

‘We want to make sure everyone is safe during these times, so we had to make the decision to cancel the in person casting events,’ Diddy told TMZ on Tuesday. ‘But at the same time, I want to provide opportunity to everyone to audition from their homes.

‘So I’ve put together a team of A&Rs that will be checking #MTBcasting on all social platforms 24/7 to find gems. Everyone be safe!’

A special event that’s been postponed is Nickelodeon’s 2020 Kids’ Choice Awards, which were slated to be held March 22 in Los Angeles with Chance The Rapper hosting and Justin Bieber taking the stage, Deadline reported.

The show ‘is being postponed in consideration of the safety and well-being of every person involved with the show, which is our top priority,’ Nickelodeon said in a statement.

Warner Bros. is also taking measures to mitigate exposure to the outbreak but not going so far as to put a blanket ban on studio audiences at their Burbank, California location.

WB released a statement on Tuesday: ‘We are asking all guests to confirm that neither they nor any member of their household have traveled within the past three weeks to or through a location that has been deemed ‘Level 3′ by the CDC (currently China, Italy, Iran and South Korea).’

‘These new and temporary precautionary measures have been put in place out of an abundance of caution and out of concern for the health and safety of our guests and staff.’  

Dr. Phil, which is filmed in Los Angeles at Paramount Studios, said it will forge forward without a studio audience on hand to tape 12 episodes over the next two weeks, with a target return date of March 23. 

The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which Warner Bros. produces, is planning to implement more stringent screening methods to those who attend the tapings. 

Rob Lowe’s game show Mental Samurai is making alternate plans after it was set up to air from Madrid, Spain, insiders told TMZ on Tuesday. Travel and quarantines in the area brought about by the Coronavirus have forced the show to film from the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California, but producers already bought a full set to use in Spain, the outlet reported. The show’s new season is slated to air on Fox next month. 

Elsewhere on the West Coast, audiences remain attending tapings of Late Late Show With James Corden, insiders told The Hollywood Reporter, but CBS is ready to implement alternate measures should the need arise.

The show A Little Late With Lilly Singh on NBC is not currently in production, while Conan is off for two weeks on a hiatus starting Monday, according to the outlet.

Disney+’s upcoming The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has halted production in Prague, Deadline reported Tuesday. The show has been slated to shoot there this week, but the cast and crew were told to return to Atlanta, where the series has been shot extensively. 

And from RuPaul’s Drag Race, the Los Angeles convention RuPaul’s DragCon, slated for May 1-3 was canceled Tuesday, according to organizers.

‘DragCon’s first priority is always the health and safety of everyone involved and we’ve been actively tracking the situation around the Coronavirus,’ DragCon said in a statement. ‘The situation in California (and the world) is rapidly changing, with new information coming out everyday. Unfortunately, there’s no way for anyone to know what the situation will be like in May.’

The game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune announced their decision to go without a studio audience Monday. The stalwart television shows, which are produced by Sony, are due to film in mid-April in Culver City, California, insiders told The Hollywood Reporter.  

The decision came as Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek, 79, is fighting stage 4 pancreatic cancer, which includes chemotherapy treatments. 

CBS last week halted production on its long-running show The Amazing Race in response to growing concerns about the ailment. 

Demographics indicate that audience members for the shows have an average age of more than 60 years old, a group the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says stands at an additional hazard of contracting the virus.

The CDC says that the Coronavirus can exacerbate conditions in pre-existing conditions of older adults and the spread is likely to get worse. 

‘More cases of COVID-19 are likely to be identified in the United States in the coming days, including more instances of community spread,’ the CDC reports. ‘It’s likely that at some point, widespread transmission of COVID-19 in the United States will occur.’ 

The World Health Organization said that most people can recover from the illness in two weeks if it’s mild, while those who are impacted by a more severe strain can take between three and six weeks to heal.