It’s the end of an E-ra. After more than three decades, E! is ending its flagship show, E! News. Plus, the network has long since stopped Keeping Up With the Kardashians. So what’s next for cable TV’s pop-culture destination?
Fans found out last week that E! News, launched in 1991, will end on September 25, though the news operation will continue as a digital brand on platforms like the E! Online website.
E! previously called a halt to the nightly entertainment-news program in 2020 amid Covid-19 lockdowns. The show returned in 2022 and shifted from daytime to late night. But upon the show’s cancellation last week, its staff was informed that audiences preferred to consume entertainment news throughout the day on social media — where E! has 87 million followers — instead of at night on television — where Keltie Knight and Justin Sylvester, pictured below, host the show’s current iteration — according to the Los Angeles Times.
E! News’ cancellation comes amid a corporate breakup, as NBCUniversal spins off E! and other cable channels — including USA Network, Syfy, and MSNBC — into a new company called Versant. NBC, Bravo, and Peacock, meanwhile, will remain with NBCUniversal. And while about 20 people will be out of a job at E! News, according to the Times, some correspondents are expected to get new roles at Versant, Variety reports.
Brandon Hickman/E! Entertainment
But the end of E! News isn’t necessarily the end of E! The channel still boasts original programming like Botched Presents: Plastic Surgery Rewind and Honestly Cavallari: The Headline Tour, and the upcoming shows Kimora: Back in the Fab Lane and E!’s Dirty Rotten Scandals. E! will continue to air Live From E! red carpet coverage, and the 31st Critics Choice Awards are slated to air on E! on January 4, 2026. The People’s Choice Awards has aired on E! lately, and it’s possible Botched will return with new episodes soon.
E! also ended 2024 as the 60th most-watched network, with 158K total viewers, ahead of channels like Nickelodeon, CNBC, Disney Channel, and OWN, as Variety reported. In the 18-to-49-year-old demographic, the channel ranked 41st, with 54K viewers. Those numbers are down from 2014, when E! was getting 550k total viewers and 320k total viewers. But other linear TV channels have suffered similar audience declines with the rise of streaming. In the same time frame — 2014 to 2024 — FX lost 71 percent of its reach, USA lost 63 percent, and TBS lost 58 percent, according to Nielsen and MoffettNathanson data cited in TripleLift’s 100 Years of Television report.
Plus, E! has had success with its Live red-carpet programming recently. In 2024, Live From E! averaged 735K viewers across its Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, and People’s Choice Awards coverage, up 30 percent over the year prior, according to Deadline. Plus, Live From E! ’s 2024 Grammys Award telecast was its most-watched Grammys show in seven years and the most-watched E! telecast in nearly four years, and both the pre-show and the post-show coverage grew for the third consecutive year. That good news came after Live From E! enjoyed its most-watched Oscar programming in the 18-to-49 demo since 2020 and a tripling of its People’s Choice Award audience.
So there’s no need to write E!’s obituary just yet: For now, the network will still air reality shows, docuseries, and its popular red carpet coverage. But maybe former E! News host Lilliana Vazquez is right to say the network just needs more of that live, hot-take energy.