Bessey Named EP of CBS' New Talker, ‘The Talk'

By Paige Albiniak
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

Brad Bessey has been named executive producer of CBS' new daytime talk show, The Talk, featuring Julie Chen, Sara Gilbert, Sharon Osbourne, Holly Robinson Peete, Leah Remini and Marisa Jaret Winokur. Together, the six panelists will talk about issues of the day as seen through the lens of motherhood.

Bessey will executive produce along with John Redmann, who has helmed such daytime shows as Tyra Banks, Rosie O'Donnell and Wayne Brady.

Bessey comes over from CBS Television Distribution's Entertainment Tonight, where he was most recently co-executive producer, working alongside EP Linda Bell Blue. Bessey had been at ET for 15 years and co-EP since 2005. He was also a senior consultant on ET's sister magazine, The Insider.

Prior to joining ET, Bessey was director of talent and development, at E! Entertainment Television from 1994 to 1995, senior talent executive for Leeza from 1993-94 and talent executive on The Montel Williams Show in 1992.

The Talk launches on CBS this October.

Paige Albiniak
Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.