Access Hollywood and Access Daily were canceled on Friday (March 13) as part of  NBCUniversal’s decision to end all first-run syndication programs produced by the network. The programs will continue to produce new episodes until September.

Access Hollywood was launched by NBC in 1996 as a competitor to CBS Media Ventures’ Entertainment Tonight, which debuted in 1981. Access Hollywood was created by former ET executive producer Jim Van Messel.

Access Hollywood gained infamy in the 2016 election cycle. On Oct. 7, 2016, one month before that year’s presidential election, The Washington Post published a video and article about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and TV host Billy Bush having a lewd conversation about women. In the video, which was recorded in September 2015, Trump and Bush were on a bus on their way to film an episode of Access Hollywood.

News of the recording broke two days before the second presidential debate between Trump, the Republican nominee, and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. For his part in the conversation, Bush was fired from his position as a host on Today, another show owned by NBCUniversal. Trump was not similarly penalized. On Nov. 8, he won the 2016 election.

NBCUniversal is also cutting several of its other daytime talk shows, effectively ending its first run syndication business. Talk shows Karamo and The Steve Wilkos Show, produced out of NBC’s facility in Stamford, Conn., are shutting down. The programs have already completed their production for the season and will run through the summer.The Steve Wilkos Show ran for 19 seasons.

NBC previously announced that The Kelly Clarkson Show is ending later this year after seven highly successful seasons.

Francis Berwick, chairman of Bravo and Peacock unscripted, said in a statement that the company will continue to distribute library episodes of its talk programs and network shows such as Law & Order. But NBCU’s days of launching series for daytime and the hour before prime time have come to an end.

“NBCUniversal is making changes to our first-run syndication division to better align with the programming preferences of local stations,” Berwick said. “The company will remain active in the distribution of our existing program library and other off-network titles, while winding down production of our first-run shows.”

Access Hollywood, and its counterpart Access Daily, are both produced in Los Angeles. They are currently hosted by Mario Lopez, Kit Hoover and Scott Evans. Correspondents are Zuri Hall, Jason Kennedy and Tim Vincent.

Former on-air staff, besides Billy Bush, includes such notable TV personalities as Michelle Beadle, Steven “Cojo” Cojocaru, Giselle Fernández, Liz Hernandez, Jill Martin, Larry Mendte, Maria Menounos, Natalie Morales, Nancy O’Dell, Pat O’Brien, Amy Powell, Jeff Probst, Tony Potts, Shaun Robinson, Sibley Scoles and Liliana Vazquez.

Access Live officially debuted under that name on Dec. 11, 2017. The show has undergone several name changes and refreshes throughout its history. Since 2019, it has been called Access Daily.  A spinoff show, Access Daily with Mario & Kit, debuted in 2022.

In April 2021, Access Hollywood and Access Daily were both renewed for four additional seasons through 2025. In 2024, they were renewed, though this time only for two years, through 2026.

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Chris Young is the latest country star to stake out his own bar.

The multi-platinum artist is opening Famous Friends, named after his chart-topping smash with Kane Brown, in Nashville’s Midtown neighborhood later this year.

“I’m very excited for Famous Friends to be open in Nashville! I have been working on this as a passion project for a while now,” Young tells Billboard. “A sports bar that will be Nashville famous for a reason. Something completely different where you can bring all your friends for a great time!”

The bar, which will be owned by a corporation Young is part of, will be located on Demonbreun Street, near the popular Tin Roof nightclub. The area is becoming a popular spot for celebrity bars as the Lower Broadway neighborhood becomes oversaturated with nightspots. Riley Green’s Duck Blind is also in Midtown.

Famous Friends already has its own social pages for fans to follow its progress on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

Young and Brown took the genial “Famous Friends” to No. 1 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart in 2021 and was Billboard’s No. 1 Country Airplay single of the year. It was also nominated for single, musical event and music video of the year at the 2021 CMA Awards.

Young, who was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2017, has been one of Nashville’s most consistent hitmakers over the past 20 years, landing eight albums in the top 10 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart, including No. 1s, I’m Comin’ Over and Losing Sleep.  In addition to “Famous Friends,” he’s taken 10 songs to the top of the Country Airplay or Hot Country Songs chart, including “Gettin’ You Home (The Black Dress Song),” “You,” “I’m Comin’ Over” and “Losing Sleep.”

Guy Oldaker has spent years establishing Illenium in Las Vegas — ever since the UTA agent recognized, in 2014, that the bass producer was the ideal artist to bring the genre to a club landscape where it had historically failed to gain traction.

“I went, ‘Holy crap, this is exactly what I think will work with this audience in Vegas,’ ” Oldaker told Billboard in 2024. “I know very well how to build an artist in the scene where I’ve built everything else. I knew if I could connect the dots, we’d have a winner.”

In a city built on gambling, Oldaker couldn’t have known how big this win would be. The agent has not only nabbed myriad club residencies for the Colorado-based artist (Nick Miller) on the Vegas Strip over the years; in 2021, he booked him at the city’s Allegiant Stadium for what became the venue’s first concert.

While that show was big, Oldaker and the team would ultimately go even bigger with Illenium’s current Sphere residency, which launched at the technologically cutting-edge venue last weekend and continues March 12-14 through April 2-4. With both the show and the LP called Odyssey, the run marks the first time an artist has created an album specifically for a Sphere residency. That’s enough for Oldaker to earn the title of Billboard‘s Executive of the Week.

Here, Oldaker talks about embarking on the sojourn to Sphere.

In 2023 you talked to Billboard about how Illenium was the perfect bass crossover artist to work for Vegas clubs, where you’ve booked him many residencies before he went on to play “Trilogy” at Allegiant Stadium in 2021. To what extent did his long history in the city help you and the team secure the Sphere residency?

We’ve spent a significant amount of time developing Illenium’s career and fanbase in Vegas through various club residencies, festivals, appearances (EDC and Life Is Beautiful, etc.) and debuting our “Trilogy” event at Allegiant Stadium for their grand opening, one of the first shows to happen after the COVID lockdown. Our team recognizes Las Vegas as one of the world’s preeminent markets for dance music, and we’ve been lucky to have incredible local and national touring partners who have supported & championed us. All of these factors and more helped us get on the radar of the Sphere team.


What were the initial conversations about getting Illenium in the venue? Is it a competitive venue to get into? How did you get the deal over the finish line?

Initial conversations began years ago after the “Trilogy” show at Allegiant, when one of our local partners asked if we’d like to see a “cool new venue being developed.” Once we got a taste, the wheels started turning. Sphere is a very unique and special venue. It’s not a room that an artist can “just show up and play.” In order to maximize the capabilities of the room and for the show to be meaningful and impactful for the audience, the artist and their team need to have a very specific vision for what they want to have fans experience.

Nick very quickly put together a concept and plan for what he wanted to do at Sphere, and through many conversations and presentations with Sphere’s team, we found we were aligned on how to create a first-of-its-kind and unique experience for fans, not only his amazing show, but also the incredible venue that Sphere is. 

Anyma was of course the first electronic artist to do a Sphere residency. Assuming you saw that show? What did it do in terms of bar setting? Was there a sense of having to match or beat that residency given that it was also electronic?

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend an Anyma show due to schedule conflicts, but I was able to attend multiple Dead & Company shows as well as Backstreet Boys. All of the acts that performed at Sphere prior to us, including Anyma, set the bar very high for anyone who wants to play the room. Our team went into creating this show wanting to build and expand upon all of the amazing things everyone before us was able to accomplish in the room and find ways to tap into parts of the facility that had not been used yet and to bring things in that have never been done before, like pyro and other special experiences I don’t want to spoil. You’ll have to see a show! 


Other artists’ teams have said that there’s a pretty steep learning curve with Sphere, given all that it can do. How did you guys learn how to “use” the venue, and how long did that take? What were the biggest challenges? 

Our team spent a lot of time working with Sphere at the venue and their practice facility, as well as building a lot of the show in VR. It was a very unique and cool experience, and one I’ve never seen happen in this way before. We’re still learning and making little changes to the show every day, even after the residency’s start. The possibilities of what you can do in Sphere are seemingly endless, and it’s such a fun and cool experience watching the team learning and developing technologies and new experiences in real time.

Who is the core Illenium audience, and are you finding that Odyssey is drawing crowds beyond that audience, given how interested people are in the venue? In other words, how does this show widen the Illenium audience?

We’ve certainly seen a lot of people attending Odyssey that are not “core fans.” It’s exciting to see, and even more heartwarming to see many of them having emotional experiences and then buying jerseys [Illenium’s signature merch item.] Seeing all of the jerseys and merch being repped across all the hotels has been a very special experience. It’s only up from here, and we want everyone to be able to enjoy and see this incredible show!

How did you and the team celebrate after the three opening nights?

Everyone had a good hang backstage, hugs, high-fives and lots of water! We all celebrated an amazing first weekend, but we have more to go! Ask us after we get through them all!

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

I’m grateful to be continually surrounded by great people doing great things. There’s nothing more special than seeing your team’s vision come together in such an incredible way. Can’t wait to see what else these amazing folks continue to do!