Jerry Springer, Legendary Talk Show Host, Dies At 79

Jerry Springer, the former Cincinnati mayor who rose to tremendous fame as a syndicated talk show host, died Thursday at his home in the Chicago area after a brief illness, according to his family. He was 79.

His family said he was surrounded by loved ones and issued the following statement:

“Jerry, born Gerald Norman Springer in London, England on February 13, 1944, immigrated to Queens, New York at the age of four along with his parents and older sister. He graduated from Tulane University and Northwestern University Law School, served in the United States Army Reserves and had a long career in law, politics, journalism and broadcasting. He was known for the Jerry Springer Show, the Judge Jerry Show, the Springer on the Radio Show, Baggage, the Jerry Springer Podcast and until recently even his own 60s folk music radio show in Cincinnati. He also wrote an autobiography and once starred in a movie. But he captured the emotions of the country in 2006 with a shockingly long and humorous run on the popular Dancing With the Stars Show.”

Springer’s broadcast career started while he was an undergraduate at Tulane University, on station WTUL New Orleans FM, a progressive format college radio station. It continued while he was still mayor of Cincinnati, with radio station WEBN-FM, which featured commentaries by Springer under the banner The Springer Memorandum. The popularity of these commentaries launched his broadcasting career.

Known, of course, for the often controversial syndicated daytime talker The Jerry Springer Show, the origins of the weekday hour at its launch in 1991 were more in line with the then popular Phil Donahue Show. It began as a politically oriented talk show, a longer version of Springer’s commentaries. But it transformed into an hour of pure sensationalism and confrontation in 1994 in order to garner higher ratings. In its heyday, The Jerry Springer Show topped the then untouchable Oprah Winfrey Show, averaging an estimated 12 million viewers per telecast.

Coining the phrase “trash TV”, Springer proudly introduced the program as the “worst TV show of all time” at the start of each episode. Ultimately, the program was recognized as “the most infamous guilty pleasure” in American television throughout the late 1990s to early 2000s

After The Jerry Springer Show concluded its 27 season run in the summer of 2018, Springer returned to daily syndicated in court-themed Judge Jerry in the fall of 2019. It ran for three season.

Other career hosting highlights included America’s Got Talent on NBC for its second and third seasons; Miss World in 2000 and 2001 and Miss Universe 2008, Investigation Discovery series Tabloid, and various series episodes on the WWE Network.

More recently, in 2022, Springer competed in season eight of The Masked Singer as “Beetle.”