Live with Kelly and Mark (or simply Live) is an American syndicated morning talk show hosted by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. Executive produced by Michael Gelman, the Live with... show formula has aired under various hosts since 1983 locally on WABC-TV in New York City and 1988 nationwide. , it is produced by WABC.
With roots in A.M. Los Angeles and A.M. New York, Live began as The Morning Show, hosted by Regis Philbin and Cyndy Garvey. Kathie Lee Gifford joined Philbin in 1985 and the show rose to national prominence following its rebranding as Live with Regis and Kathie Lee in 1988. Gifford was followed by Ripa. The franchise has had longstanding success and has won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show and Outstanding Talk Show Hosts."Daytime Emmy for 'Live! . Since April 2023, the show has been hosted by Ripa and her husband, Mark Consuelos. Prior to Consuelos, Ripa co-hosted the show with Philbin, Michael Strahan, and Ryan Seacrest.
Production
Concept Executive producer Michael Gelman said in 1993, "The real concept of the show, in a symbolic sense, is that they are husband and wife. They have their coffee mugs and they're chit-chatting about what's going on." It is the basis of the show's signature "Host Chat", an unscripted on-air conversation between the co-hosts that opens each show. Following Host Chat is a trivia segment in which the show telephones a home viewer, who must answer a question (usually about a guest on a recent show) to win a vacation for themselves and a door prize for a member of the studio audience. Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, the hosts started playing a new game with the contestant before the trivia question, wherein the caller gives the host two statements, one true and one false. The segment has since become "Stump Mark!", and if Consuelos guesses wrong, the caller wins a "Live with Kelly and Mark" mug, and t-shirt proclaiming, "I Stumped Mark!". The show then continues with interviews with celebrity guests, musical performances, and other recurring segments, including regular features showcasing fashion, food, health, and lifestyle topics.
The husband and wife breakfast chat program was popular in old time radio, beginning with Ed and Pegeen Fitzgerald, and later Dick Kollmar and Dorothy Kilgallen and Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg. Parodied by Woody Allen in his film Radio Days, these programs were popular locally in New York, and Philbin would have heard them in his youth.
The format of Live! has been emulated by other successful talk shows such as the British programmes This Morning and Today with Des and Mel. However, it has also proven to be resilient against similarly formatted talk shows from other syndicators or networks, seeing programs such as George & Alana, Donny & Marie, Living It Up! with Ali & Jack, The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, and Anderson Live all launch and end in short periods of time throughout its entire run, and fail to make any headway in the traditional 9 a.m. local time slot Live! has been traditionally slotted in for most markets.
The show is broadcast live from New York City, on weekdays at 9 a.m. for stations in the Eastern Time Zone, and is tape-delayed for the rest of the country. Most affiliates also rebroadcast Live during the overnight hours, and after that, episodes stream for two months the next day on Hulu. As of 2025, two tapings a day generally take place Monday through Wednesday. Although the program is generally associated with the ABC network and airs on all ABC owned-and-operated stations (to the point a common misnomer, even by companies whose stations carry the series, is that it is scheduled and produced by the network as a part of ABC Daytime), in many markets the program is syndicated to stations affiliated with other networks. Live did not air in a morning timeslot on all ABC-owned stations until September 2013, as WLS-TV in Chicago programmed the 9 a.m. timeslot with The Oprah Winfrey Show---WLS-TV was the originating station for Oprah in the 1980s---and then with Windy City Live after Oprah concluded its run in 2011. Although WLS-TV had carried the New York-based Live in an overnight timeslot earlier in its run, the show aired on other Chicago stations, including WGN-TV from 2002 through 2013.
Recurring segments Guinness World Record Breaker Week, New York Auto Show Week, Broadway Week, and Top Teacher Week are examples of features frequently visited on the show, highlighting a different aspect of the theme everyday that week. Live will also invite "whiz kids" to oppose the co-hosts at spelling, athletics, mathematics, sport stacking, and technology, among other tasks. A recurring gag with Philbin as co-host was him challenging seniors—preferably over the age of 100—at tennis, basketball, ping-pong, and bowling, for example. Regular contributors to the show include toy enthusiast Chris Byrne, style maven Lawrence Zarian, animal expert Peter Gros, automotive expert Alan Taylor, pediatrician Greg Yapalater, home and gardening show host Katie Brown, technology specialist Leo Laporte, entrepreneur Carley Roney, Science Bob, veterinarian Jennifer Jellison, and nutrition expert Wendy Bazilian.Latest Features .
Specials The show has hosted a number of specials over the years since it began. Specials have included a Halloween celebration in which the co-hosts wore dozens of costumes and portrayed some of the most famous and infamous names in pop culture.Exciting Roster of Guest Co-Hosts .
In February 2011, Live threw a wedding for a couple who wrote in with reasons why they should be married on the show.'Live!' Heads to Paradise from The Futon Critic Viewer submissions have also been accepted for their "Moms Dream Come True Special", where the co-hosts pay tribute to a select group of mothers. The show has aired a Post-Oscar special the day after the awards ceremony live from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
On location Live has been to eight countries and nearly 25 states, logging .Around the World in 28 Years . The list of remotes includes Tampa, Hawaii, Monaco, Banff, San Antonio, Aspen, Walt Disney World, New Orleans, Disneyland, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Paris, Detroit, Chicago, The Bronx, Los Angeles, the USS Intrepid, Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Maui, Prince Edward Island, London, Scottsdale, the White House, Charlotte, Churchill Downs, Niagara Falls, Puerto Rico, Marina del Rey, Philadelphia, Branson, Mount Rushmore, The Bahamas, and the Dolby Theatre's set for the 85th Academy Awards.
History Co-host timeline
+ Co-hosts timeline Co-host Years Seasons1234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435363738 1988–2011 colspan="24" colspan="14" 1988–2000 colspan="12" colspan="7" colspan="2" colspan="2" colspan="8" colspan="5" 2001–present colspan="12" colspan="26" 2012–16 colspan="19" colspan="2" colspan="4" colspan="10" 2017–23 colspan="16" colspan="5" colspan="3" colspan="7" colspan="2" 2023–present colspan="17" colspan="2" colspan="5" colspan="3" colspan="4"
1983–1988: The Morning Show The Morning Show, co-hosted by Regis Philbin and Cyndy Garvey, premiered locally on WABC-TV in New York on April 4, 1983. In 1984, Garvey left the show and Philbin hired Ann Abernathy, whom he remembered from his time at KABC for her engaging personality, to assume the co-host duties.How I Got This Way . After Abernathy got married and decided to return to Los Angeles, Kathie Lee Johnson (later Gifford) joined Philbin officially on June 24, 1985. Their chemistry proved to be successful as The Morning Show soon became number 1 in the marketDisney-ABC Domestic Television . and went on to debut in national syndication on September 5, 1988, when the title was changed to Live with Regis and Kathie Lee.
1988–2000: Live with Regis and Kathie Lee After two weeks of the show, syndicators were considering cancelling it although their response to the show was tempered by the even poorer debut of the more hyped USA Today: The Television Show. However, eventually Live matched its local success with impressive national ratings and established itself as a dominant fixture in American television.Show Page . Entertainment Weekly described Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford as "an agreeable mismatch" and their famous banter as "playful, edgy, and amusing."Live with Regis and Kathie Lee . Gifford's positivity throughout public scandals such as the 1996 accusation that her clothing line was being run under sweatshop conditions and her husband Frank Gifford's 1997 affair with a flight attendant resonated with the female demographic of the show, but ultimately made her a media target prompting her emotional departure on July 28, 2000. "Over a third of my life has been [at Live]," she said. "This is family. It is been an amazing journey." Gifford appeared on Live! with Regis and Kelly on three occasions, for the show's 20th Anniversary special on September 14, 2007, to promote her book Just When I Thought I'd Dropped My Last Egg: Life and Other Calamities on April 14, 2009, and again as a guest to bid farewell to Philbin on his second to last show, November 17, 2011. Gifford went on to host the fourth hour of Today with Hoda Kotb; that show mainly airs an hour after Live! in most markets, though a few markets where both shows air at 10:00 a.m. against each other did exist.
2000–2001: Live with Regis When looking for Gifford's replacement, Philbin and executive producer Michael Gelman teamed Philbin with a handful of potential co-hosts, including Joy Philbin, Kathleen Murphy, Rosie O'Donnell, Jann Carl, Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy Fountain, Gloria Estefan, Jillian Reynolds, Lisa Rinna, Caroline Rhea, and Suzanne Sena. This met with positive fan response and a 26 percent ratings increase.Fans love the new format . Philbin won his first Daytime Emmy Award for Live during this period. Ripa auditioned four months into the search, on November 1, 2000.A Revealing Audition . Three months later, on the morning of February 5, 2001, Philbin officially announced that Ripa would replace Gifford as his new permanent co-host.
2001–2011: Live! with Regis and Kelly Ripa's co-hosting duties began the following week, on February 12, 2001. The young-audience demographic of Live! with Regis and Kelly increased by 80 percent, with Ripa credited by major outlets such as the Chicago Tribune and Entertainment Weekly for bringing a new life to the show (dubbed "the Ripa effect"). Seven months into Philbin's and Ripa's run, the September 11 attacks on the United States occurred, with coverage beginning twelve minutes before that day's episode would have started. The show was pre-empted for a week following the attacks and returned September 18, 2001.
Together they hosted the annual Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade during this era. In 2009, when Philbin underwent hip surgery, Nick Cannon replaced him as the host for that year's Christmas special. Ryan Seacrest also took Philbin's place on occasion. Ripa later had a stress fracture, which made it necessary for her to host the show on crutches. At times Maria Menounos filled in for Ripa, who was elsewhere on assignment for the show.
Shortly after celebrating his and Ripa's 10th anniversary together, Philbin announced on January 18, 2011, that he would leave Live!.Ask Regis Philbin A Question! from huffingtonpost.com The show then held a "Regis Farewell Celebration Season", showcasing Philbin's top moments from his 28 years on the program, 1983–2011.'Live!' Kicks Off "Regis Farewell Celebration" from abcmedianet.com His final show aired November 18, 2011.Philbin's Last Guests .
Live! with Regis and Kelly won two Daytime Emmy Awards during its run.
2011–2012: Live! with Kelly (first era)