The nightly celebrity news programme E! News has been cancelled after 34 years on the air.
Versant, the company that oversees E! and a number of former NBCUniversal cable networks, is axing the show, which currently broadcasts at 11.30pm Eastern Time, with the final episode airing on 25 September.
E! News is fronted by hosts Keltie Knight and Justin Sylvester. The series, which launched in 1991, previously had a hiatus during the pandemic but returned in 2022 after a two-year break.
The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline report that employees learned of the cancellation on Thursday (24 July) morning, with a repeat episode airing that evening instead of an original episode.
Around 20 people work on the E! News programme, with some understood to be offered other roles at the company and others expected to leave.
New episodes will resume next week, with the network’s other programmes, Access Hollywood and Access Daily, airing as usual.
E! News will still exist as a digital brand and will instead focus on growth on its social platforms, which have seen impressive growth on Instagram and TikTok, Deadline reported earlier this year.
E!, which currently has around 87M social media followers, puts out numerous digital programmes, including E! News The Rundown on Snapchat, Hot Goss on Instagram and RE!CAP on YouTube.
The channel also airs shows including E!’s Dirty Rotten Scandals, Botched Presents: Plastic Surgery Rewind and Honestly Cavallari: The Headline Tour, hosted by TV personality Kristin Cavallari.
In the shake up, NBCUniversal has split itself in two, per The Hollywood Reporter. Peacock and Bravo will stay as key pieces of NBCU, while the rest (USA Network, Syfy, E!, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen and Golf Channel) will make up the new company Versant.
The company’s digital businesses Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes and Golf Now will also move to Versant.
Long term E! News viewers were quick to react to the news online. “Here’s to the news channel I was raised on,” one person said on Instagram. “What is going on?” asked another.
“Honestly that was my dream job growing up,” another fan added, with a fourth echoing: “This was my ultimate dream platform to host on. The end of an era.”
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