Chris Wallace Returns With Dual Platform Talk Show For HBO Max & CNN: “It Was A Bumpy Road To Get From Here To There, But We Feel Very Lucky”
23.09.2022 - 16:35
/ deadline.com
When Chris Wallace’s talk show returns today on HBO Max, there won’t be many changes from its previous incarnation: Sitting on a spartan set with a black backdrop, he interviews celebrities, politicians, authors and other boldfaced names. He even sings, a bit, with Shania Twain.
The biggest change is that it is not on CNN+. Back in March, Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? was one of the ill-fated subscription streaming service’s signature shows, only to disappear when the venture was shut down by CNN’s new corporate parent Warner Bros. Discovery.
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Each Friday, three interviews will drop on HBO Max, with the best highlights featured on CNN on Sundays at 7 p.m. ET — an unusual arrangement in the world of streaming.
In a Deadline interview along with his executive producer, Javier De Diego, Wallace acknowledged that, “it was a bumpy road to get from here to there, but we feel very lucky.” He said that HBO Max, with its 75 million subscribers, actually is proving to be beneficial in booking guests, as opposed to CNN+, which “you kind of at that point early on had to explain to people what it was.”
In addition to Twain, the initial lineup of guests include Alex Rodriguez, Henry Winkler, James Patterson, Tyler Perry and — in his first interview since retirement — former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.
Wallace said that the show hasn’t veered from its intent — longer, free-flowing interviews that are about 30 minutes in length. Once a fixture on TV with the likes of Larry King and Charlie Rose, such an interview format has all but disappeared from TV, with podcasts filling the void.
On his Fox News Sunday show, a 10- or 12- minute interview would be