Live with Kelly and Mark

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. 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. In February 2011, Live threw a wedding for a couple who wrote in with reasons why they should be married on the show. 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 . 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==