Don Lemon dug into his previous to assist enhance his future.
In a not-too-distant period, Lemon played an interesting part in NCS’s longstanding coverage of New Year’s Eve. When Anderson Cooper and his co-host — Kathy Griffin or Andy Cohen — wrapped their internet hosting duties for the evening, the highlight would shift to Lemon, who often held forth in a southern metropolis and was much less, ah, formal than his cable-news colleagues. He would possibly imbibe. He would possibly get his ear pierced. In one memorable second, Lemon informed viewers he was a “grown-a– man” who was “able to share my point of view on television and it freaks people out and you know what? You can kiss my behind, I do not care. I don’t care.”
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No shock, such stuff went viral
Lemon banked on that very side of when he returned to protection of New Year’s Eve in December — the primary time he had completed so since leaving NCS in 2023. This time, nonetheless, he was working for himself, and never a mainstream media group.
“It’s not very often you get to this stage of your life and get to reinvent yourself and learn new things,” says Lemon, throughout a latest interview. He has embraced the so-called “creator” economy by taking to digital venues akin to YouTube and Instagram and constructing his personal collection of interviews and information discussions. His exit from NCS after it was put under the aegis of executives from the former Discovery Communications, “forced me” to pivot, and, consequently, he provides, “I feel younger and more a part of the culture and the zeitgeist than when” he labored on the information outlet.
Don Lemon’s New Year’s Eve particular generated greater than 30 million views throughout Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube, with the six-and-a-half-hour livestream receiving greater than 600,000 reside viewers throughout YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook. Clips from the particular on TikTok generated 3.1 million views and received the digital host greater than 3,000 new followers. On Instagram and Facebook, the clips generated 26 million views and elevated his follower rely by 20,000.
Meanwhile, NCS’s New Year’s Eve protection, led by Cooper and Andy Cohen, wooed a mean of almost 2.77 million viewers total on conventional TV between 8 p.m. and 12:30 a.m.
Lemon wasn’t making an attempt to compete with what he calls “New York New Year’s Eve,” understanding full properly that ABC’s longtime “Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve” and NCS’s particular protection are staples for a sure viewership set. Instead, he targeted on New Orleans and handled the chance like a soccer sport. Viewers may watch him go to the road on which his get together would happen, maintain a pre-event present that he likened to a tailgate, and prepare forward of the particular occasion. He tapped native officers, native cooks and used his reside stream to lift funds for Manning Family Children’s, a neighborhood pediatric hospital.
He wasn’t fully positive he would be capable of pull the entire thing off. He employed the manufacturing crew and digital camera personnel, and needed to make sure the occasion area had the correct connectivity that will keep intact all through the day. He additionally had to ensure his protection had a sponsor, and his workforce lined up Don Julio tequila.
“I’ve had to learn not just editorial, but the technology and the business part of it,” says Lemon.
Fans of his New Year’s antics on NCS might need loved a cameo through distant by Brooke Baldwin, the former NCS afternoon anchor who used to look alongside Lemon on New Year’s Eve, He was even in discussions with Kathy Griffin, he says, about making a attainable look.
Lemon seems extra informal. He’s now not sporting jackets and gown shirts. But such work is something however straightforward, he says. At first, he was doing exhibits behind a desk in a standard studio, however realized folks needed to see him doing interviews with folks on the road in unvarnished vogue. “I had to untrain myself” and discard some TV habits. And he needed to juggle new duties as properly “You have to be relentless and shameless. You can’t judge yourself,” he says. “You have to read ads. You have to do it, and you have to be constantly present.”
His New Year’s success has Lemon able to double down on large occasions all through 2026. Look for him on the Grammys and, hopefully, the Super Bowl.
Lemon’s new work on creator media could seem radically completely different from his time on NCS, however some folks would possibly see it as an extension. The host in 2022 was working on a weekly talk show for NCS+, a streaming service that was quickly scuttled after its launch. Lemon had additionally pressed to attempt new concepts in his late primetime hours. He anchored NCS at 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., and had lengthy needed to do a present with folks “just sitting on big lounge chairs or club chairs and couches, and doing more of a relaxed show,” he remembers. NCS on the time informed him the idea could be tough to execute. “All of a sudden, Greg Gutfeld is doing it,” he says referring to the Fox News host who leads a late-night-styled program at 10 p.m. “I think it would have been great, but, oh well, I can still do it now.”
Indeed, the enchantment of Lemon’ s new job is that he can attempt something at the very least as soon as, as long as he exams ideas viewers really feel are genuine and fascinating, Still, if you lead the present in addition to the enterprise and logistics behind it, the job by no means ends. “It’s a lot of work,” says Lemon, “and you cannot let your foot off the pedal.”
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