Meredith Vieira's new talk show aims for comfort

NEW YORK — Meredith Vieira wants to feel at home on the set of her new daytime talk show, premiering Monday (check local listings).

So she's decorated her set with a ratty chair, shredded by her cats, from her Westchester County, N.Y., family room, copies of paintings by her kids, and a plaque from her dad's medical practice. And at a taping Wednesday, her dog, Jasper, roamed around the 30 Rock studio, across the hall from Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, in preparation for a segment on how to give dog massages. She has a five-member band, unusual in daytime. And her pal of 20 years, former PR exec Jon Harris, is her newbie sidekick and announcer, warming up the audience and bantering playfully from an easy chair across the stage.

Not everything is comfy, particularly her pair of tan heels. "These shoes are killing me," she says to her giddy audience of mostly middle-aged women. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."

She's no stranger to daytime: Nine years on ABC's The View, five on NBC's Today Show and 11 hosting Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. So viewers are "getting me, essentially, whether they want to or not. That's all I can deliver," she says.

The show is a mix of celebrity, games and feel-good talk, with neither the flash of Ellen DeGeneres nor the serious topics mined by Katie Couric, whose two-year daytime stint just ended in failure. It's not topical, and is often taped days in advance. But "we always have something that kind of tugs at your heart or makes you think twice; that's how I see my contribution."

Jennifer Lopez guests Monday, Seth Rogen arrives Tuesday to talk about Alzheimer's disease, and in the episode taped Wednesday, and airing Sept. 22, Josh Groban surprises a group of kids, led by her bandleader Everett Bradley. There's also that dog-massage primer, an entrepreneur who displays a cheeseburger made of Rice Krispies treats and a taped bit in which a disguised Vieira pranks tourists on an NBC Studio tour.

Vieira, 60, says she has avoided studying the competition and insisted on hiring Millionaire producer Rich Sirop because "I didn't want somebody imposing what other talk shows do on me."

But she's "learned from observing what the daytime audience has said they don't want, which is too serious, too informationally driven, without any sense of fun," says veteran analyst Bill Carroll of Katz Television Group.

NBC, which is distributing the show and will air it on its own stations, tried to lure her to daytime when she left Today in 2011, but "I was burnt out. I knew in my heart I wanted to spend more time at home, and the grind really got to me." But soon, she found, "nobody at home really wanted me there. I thought, What else would I do?'" So she signed on.

NBC Broadcasting chairman Ted Harbert says "she's not a comedian like Ellen or Steve Harvey, she's not a doctor like Phil, but she's been on television 40 years and there's just this love. She's up for anything, (and) you can just feel the connection."

Is being likable enough? "I don't think so," Vieira says. "It helps, but you have to put on a good show to get them back in the tent." And if it fails, like so many have? "It's almost like I can't take this too personally, but I will."