TV Has Been Good to Steve Harvey. Just Not Good Enough.

from Family Feud to his own daytime talk show. But what you don't know is that there's a lot more to his sprawling business interests. I caught up with him last month in Las Vegas to talk about it all at Variety's annual conference at CES. I just learned from you backstage, this is your first c E S. What what brought you out here? I mean, you know, I didn't even know what existed. I'm sixty woman. I just stopped putting stuff on index cards, so you know, I

didn't even know. Uh, my son's I have all of my children on Millennials and my oldest son is twenty seven, and uh, he said, Dad, you gotta go. It's the cutting edge is where everything is that's moving forward. You know, I've had to do a lot in terms of technology that to keep my business in the forefront. You know, I'm not just a television guy. You know, I'm a businessman. So I've had to do a lot to learn about

technology to keep myself in the forefront. You know, I'm not happy with every aspect of technology, but you know, I'm getting there. But the key for me is I surround myself with a lot of young people, you know, who are more used to this. You know, So what what kind of technology trends or things are catching your eye out here? You know, the apps, the apps are crazy right now. You know, I've got a couple of fintemp investments in a couple of apps out there now

with finance and things like that. Harvey's Hundreds is doing good in the app world right now, which is a game that I do on my talk show that I turned into an app that's doing really well. And I just look for right now, and I just I just look for cutting edge opportunities. You know, things is out there. You know, because as as a businessman, you know, I've made the majority of my money making appearances. You know

that's all. That's a tough way to make a living, you know, when you always got to be on something. I'm I'm probably on TV more than anybody in the country. I have more television appearances right now than anybody. But that's a tough way to make a living. Why is that because people would assume, all, you're the star of the show, You're making millions. I mean, you know you should ask your accounting maybe, yeah. I mean, you know, I don't know that people understand the grind that that is.

You know, it's it's a difficult job. You know. When I go to work, I don't have the luxury that I can sit back and just chill. I can't put my feet up, I can't get a cup of coffee. I can't lay back on the phone, I can't go No. When I come to work, I'm on I'm on the radio every single day, talking to seven and a half

to nine million people a week. Then I turned around and I do my talk show two to three shows a day, and then on the weekend I'm doing either Family Feud, Celebrity Family Feud, Little Big Shots, Show Time with the Apollo, Oh Miss Universe that they didn't think i'd ever be back on that now. Whatever do you mean? Little little accident happened one year. You know, it wasn't really my fault, but I took the book laid on that one. You know, I read the teleprompter. I read

exactly what the teleprompter said. They said and the new two thousand fifteen Miss Universe is it said it. And the dude in my ear said, read the next name, Ms. Columbia, and I said, Miss Columbia, great job, Steve, go to the back and I went to the back. Everything was cool, and then some dude came out and said, you said the wrong name. I said, I didn't say wrong. Okay,

I'm not supposed to cuss. And that was you know, but you know, I do a lot, man, and so you know, being on it is difficult, but I don't have the luxury like I was saying, like most people

are being able to just sit around and chill. So when you work like that, man, I've already proven myself to be the hardest working man, and show business is now with my global business opportunities and things like that, I'm trying to work a lot smarter instead are harder so much, you know, I get it, But you know, because you've got so much going on in daytime in particular, people might be thinking, all right, he'll just do that show for for years to come. But how do you

look at the TV business right now? Do you see the kind of show, for instance, your talk show right now? Is that something that could just go on infinitely or are we different? Are we dealing with a different kind of Hollywood these days? We're dealing definitely different. Television is dying. Daytime television is dying. My show, uh, Steve is the only show over the past seven years that came into

syndication and stuck. Nothing else has stuck. There has been no syndicated TV shows launched in seven years that have stopped. Queen Got Out, Ricky Lake got out, Mardi Vera got out, Bethany got out. Everything that launched failed. It's a very tough space right now. Plus, because of technology, people watch TV when they want to. Now, nobody's sitting at the house at one thirty Steve coming on. Now, y'all tape it and then I don't get the credit for it.

And the Nielsen's system has sucked from day one. Yeah, I don't know who thought this was a great ass way of measuring a person's success. But Nielsen is like the most archaic thing ever created. That's why Facebook and YouTube now prove out so much different. You know, exactly how many people are watching It's only thirty five um thousand Nielsen boxes in the country. It's over three fifty million people here, and those thirty five thousand people determine

what shows it here or not. That's that's archaic, you know. So what do you what what becomes the next step? Do you look at the facebooks of the world and say, maybe that's where my show's got to be. Okay, you're trying to corner me now, because corner is such a harsh Yeah, you know, you gotta look at it. I gotta look at it. I gotta be smart, you know, I gotta think about it because that's where it's headed. It's not it's not in network television anymore. Syndication is dead.

They didn't even they didn't even present a show last year. Nothing was presented. No new shows came in. Is that what you're saying. Nothing was at Napty where they launched and introduced new shows in January and Miami. Nothing was introduced the first time ever no syndicated shows were introduced, and that was that was a clear sign to me, you know, an NBC university who I'm with, you know, is they're making other decisions, you know, because oh, well,

you staying with NBC Universal. Is that deal going forward? I thought I was until they made an announcement a couple of weeks ago that they wanted to give Kelly Clarkson the owned and operated NBC Networks and that's my slot. Uh it didn't. I don't know if it's sold. It's not selling like they thought. But you know, I thought it would have been nice of them to come to me, has been the only dude that survived for them for seven years, and say, Steve, we're thinking about doing this.

But no, they just made an announcement. So when you do that, I gotta make announcements too, you know. I got something to say, something, something new that you know, the public demands it. You know, we can't all just here. You can't make announcements that don't expect they have to hear one yourself. And so I'm I'm working it'll it'll be something real cute. Um, I don't you know, I don't I just you know, I'm an honorable guy. Man.

I'm just an old school guy. Man. I just thought that you're supposed to talk to people and go, look, you've been good business for us. This is what we're thinking of doing. Are you okay with that? Now? You don't just put something in the paper and say, you know, I'm gonna make this move right here, because it's crazy. And you look at the numbers on my show as number four, and daytime television is holding right there. I

gotta hit so somebody's gonna recognize that. Yeah. Well, also you you might be in good company recently, Ellen degenerous even indicated and everything. Who are this is my I'm the working variety, that's you know. Damn. I mean, if Ellen's getting out, potentially, I think everyone's looking at the sidelines. I just did a show two weeks ago, and Ellen and I are friends. A matter of fact, we do little big shots together. And um, she is talking about it.

Her brother wants her to stay. A girl says, go, I don't know what she's gonna do. She's like the Ellen is the most popular person in television, no one, I'm second take him seriously. I hope she do leave so I could just so I could just be number one for chick. I'm so sick of being second. I mean congeniality, likability, trustworthy factor. Do you feel if you was number two all the day on time? You know? So Ellen is really good man, She's a super sweet person. Man.

I love him. I wanted to do what's best for her health, and to do what's best for that because sometimes, man, you gotta consider your health even I I gotta look, man, it's stressful and you're doing so many different My doctors have told me, hey, man, what what how long you think you're gonna do this? And I said, well, you know, hell, I ain't digging ditches. And I worked at Ford Motor Company. Man, I used to put eight spark plugs in eight engines

a day. That's stressful, jokes, that's pretty cool. So I mean it honestly, maybe in your best interest to not do a talk show anymore. It's not like you don't have plenty of other irons in the fire, you know. Um. The biggest joggonnaut for me is family. Few Nothing is bigger than that. It's such a huge, huge, and the the money that's generated off social media from the clips, the clips I'm in every clip, so you would know

that alone. I mean, I'm just looking at it right now. Man, if you can get like, for example, or the other day, I had a dance off on my show between my warm up who I invited down to dance with a kid that was on the show. It ended up getting twenty two million views in like ten days. The money

that the talk show generates off of that alone. They're walking around bragging about this one clip and the hundreds of thousands, a couple hundred thousand they made, and it just starts you to thinking, Man, that world over there, that YouTube, that Facebook world is intriguing. It's money right now. There's no delayed gratification out there in this space that that money shows up now and goes into your account. Yeah, I just gotta figure out how to have a damn

dance off every day. Well, my guess is when you did the deal for Family Feud, what social clips would be doing. That probably didn't even enter into your mind. Man, I missed that. You know, my deal is it's nine years now on Family Feud. Uh. And when I you know, Family Few was already a twenty year old franchise and it's so tied up in ownership and who created it and everything. I never could garner ownership of it. So I just charged as much as I could to be

the host of the show. And I'm choking him, I'm choking her. Got a strangle hold on them. But and I you know, the show was one four when I took over. It's like a seven too, which is virtually impossible to get in television anymore. So they're very happy with me. I'm really happy with them. Freemantle has been a great partner, so that that one you could see continuing for a long time. I want to do another game show I wanted, is that right? Yeah? What what

kind of things are you? I'm looking at one something that's just real simple. People don't like Jeopardy, you know, you know, don't tell the funks the Jeopardy And I'm just telling you the truth. It's like, who wants to be a millionaire? Who don't mean? You don't you know? Come on, you ever seen them give away the million on that show? That's crazy. You play a game show? Who want to be a million? Never give away the million? That's Nobody wants to watch Jeopardy and not know nothing.

I watched Jeopardy for two weeks. One time I didn't answer a single question. You sit there. So what family Feud is is a game that anybody can play, and so I'm looking at a couple of games show ideas right now that's for people can play along and actually get it. Get no one to answer. I don't like watching Jeopardy. You see a guy with a hundred and sixty eight thousand dollars and he didn't answer every single question. You go, did you have a bike? You know? You

ever been swimming? Ever? Do you know how to run? Because you gotta be really looking in a book an awful lot of time to know all of that. I don't. I don't like really now you're talking about room to say that is it? Go ahead? You were talking about doing game shows, but you're also in the gaming business with apps like what why does Steve Harvey even decide to be an app to do getting into the gaming

business that way? Well, Honestly, as successful and blessed as I've been in the TV business, I can't leave none of that to my kids. I can't leave the kings of comedy to my kids. I can't leave none of I can't leave any of this to my kids, nothing, because it's not owned the stuff I own, like Little Big Shots and my talk show and and and the other shows that I have ownership. And you know, when I leave doing that, that check isn't big enough. You know. That's I can't leave my career to my kids. I

don't have that type of career. I tell jokes, you know, And so I've got to generate businesses that can secure something for my family. It's very important to me that I leave not only a legacy of being a pretty successful entertainer, but I gotta leave them something. You can't

leave them. So if I don't get into these apps, if I don't take my business, which is Steve Harvey Global and expand globally, if I don't look at Africa, and I don't look at the U a E And the business opportunities that's there, if I don't look in the text space, I have no way of leaving them anything. And that's been a hard push for me lately. I'm really that's a big part of the grind, because you know, I want to leave them something, you know. Um, that's

that's a really the important part of it. Is Steve Harvey a glow Bull brand. Absolutely, I'm not saying that. I look at there's research that bags it up. I didn't know it. Out in India, I'm the number one celebrity outside of India. But now I guess that, No, I didn't know that. In Africa. I'm very very popular in Africa, and in the U a E. I'm extremely and I'm number one in the Philippines because you know when I said Miss Columbia and and turned around and

gave it to the Philippines. The next year, we did all Miss Universe in the Philippines. Seriously, it's the king, it's Miss Philippines and then this Steve Hark and that's really you know. And I've started, uh taking business meetings and and looking at all the opportunities out there, and it's been really hard warming for me. Africa is very important to me because when I go to Africa, I don't know if this will mean anything any of you, but for me, it was like going back home to

a place I've never been. And so when you're African American, I mean, you know, we were taken from a place, but when you go back to the place when you land on the continent of Africa. You're you're at home. It's it's an amazing feeling and um so that's very important for me to uh, to go there and to help develop without taking they've been so ravaged and taken. I do motivational speaking over there now developing a coding program in Botswana where I'm trying because Botswana is a

country over there all education is free. They have the most educated people in Botswana, but when they all graduate with these degrees from college and everything, the country is only two million people where they're gonna work. So they have all these educated people and just not enough jobs there yet. So I'm introducing them to coding. R my my foundation here to Stephen Marjorie Harvey Foundation this year

for the first time at the Chick fil A ranch. Uh, we're introducing a coding program to get young people interested in coding, because that's the future, you know. Stop telling our young kids to get into heating and air. Goodbody give it about you fixing the refrigerator. Just you got to get into coding. I'm sorry, I'm just I'm sorry. That's that's how I talk put out. We get it of course three times. I'm so happy. My wife ain't here because she Now you're a mong friend, curse all

you like? Yes, you're streaming. Yeah, so you're also an investor? What what kind of businesses? What do you respond to? His investor is a dynamics founder of particular kind of technology. What are the things that attract you? Oh? You know, I've invested in quite a few things. Man. Oh more than the more sold than the idea. I invested in the person more sold than the idea. See this new generation, this text savvy group. I look for people who have a bit of old school in them. You know what

I mean? No, Because okay, well let me tell you technology. Because I have a house full of millennials. My youngest child is twenty one. Because I have a house full of millennials. Tech can make you lazy because they got you thinking. If you google it, you now know it. But I'm sorry. There's two things you can't google. You can google anything, you can know anything by google it. You can't google success, and you can't google exposure. And until you meet people who understand what it is to

grind and grit to become successful, the hustler. I look for the hustler. I look for the for the for the young man or young woman that's got that grit that's been knocked down a bunch of times and got back up and kept going with the idea. I invest money in that person right there, because that's the person that ain't gonna give up. That's I'll give them what your idea is. If you soft, it ain't going nowhere. So you find people who have that old school sense

that you know, they're not sort of spoon fed. But do you feel that the tech world is a place you can invest as well? Yeah, absolutely, because there's a lot of that's it's some of the brightest minds in that tech world. Man. It took me a minute to understand that, because you know, I was old school. You know, you don't work to get it, you don't know. But now, man, you can actually think your way into millions of dollars.

There's some people that just think then thought they asked in two millions and millions of dollars while I'm out here just working my ass off, and I went, wait a minute, I gotta start finding them. People that's just thinking of stuff, you know, like the dude that invented WhatsApp. There's his whole story and what and how he went back to the house to sign the contract on the door that they had put any eviction notice. So this guy just kept hustling and hustling and hustle. But see

he comes from an impoblished background. See I would have had rested in him because of his background. The once app was outstanding. But you know what really got him to the top. That grit, that grind, that hustle. That I've been poor, I've been knocked out. They invicted me and my mama, and that dude just grinded it out and he signed that contract and what for how many billions? It was definitely a be I'll signed anything for a billion.

He's taken off. But what you can have my kids all the houses I got, I got some nice houses. You can't have all of them and the kids if you got a billion dollars, they'll be all right. My kids. I wanted to put three of them in foster care an now. But it's a sense that you have a complicated relationship with technology. It's not all of it is good. I'm it's kind of a recurring theme in this conversation. I mean, so social media, it's been good for you though.

I mean, it's a platform you're out there. How do you feel about that? It's I have mixed emotions about social media, be honest with you. Social media has made the price of fame too costly. It used to be fun to be famous. It's no longer fun anymore, and social media has taken that away. The worst invention of all time was the phone camera. The camera phone. That's

the worst because everybody got one. You know, you used to remember people used to come up to you back in the eighties and go, Steve, what I wish I had my camera? I take a picture. But they all got more now, and so now the picture request is mounted, and now they don't even have to request the picture. You crossed the room with your finger in your mouth, and there's the picture, and that's the one that show is up on social media. And then social media is

like for me, it's like the devil's playground. It's like every imp that's out there that's ever wanted to be a hater has a voice. Now you have some small, insignificant human beings that has a computer or a keypad and type something about you. You busting your ass out here? Every day, trying to make a name for yourself, provide for your family, and this little has I'm sorry, has access to a fake page and he starts printing stuff.

Then they get picked up by buzz Feed and the shade Room and media takeout, and now all of a sudden digeneration of people who get their news from the internet, no fact checking, and all of a sudden, I find myself in a meeting with a sponsor having to explain how I did not provide a home for one of my children. And I'm going, what, well, there's a report that you didn't provide a home life for your son and that him and your exes homeless. My son lives

with me. I've been taking care of him since he was six. I've never put anybody out. But I'm at a meeting explaining this to a board of people who didn't got wind of it because it caught legs on social media. Fake news, that's what it is. I mean fake news. I didn't coin that friend, but the whole

room got quiet. They said fake news. They went this is not the Republican crowd, because they went, But social media has been good to you in the sense that you're able it's it's like the TV network that you yourself own. You're able to broadcast your message. Yeah, okay, that's the good side of it too, because my wife is actually more into social media than I am. She puts it all out there with the grandkids, the kids, Marjorie, where she travels, and she likes to keep it asked

for racial. You say something negative on her page, you get a delete and a block so fast. She don't she don't tolerate it. I don't even know if you're saying nothing about me because I don't have time to read it. But it has allowed me to talk about my foundation. It has allowed me to show the lives of the young people that I get to change. So it kind of changes the narrative bit from the negative. I get more positive that I do negative. The only

problem is hate is louder than love. That's the only problem. You know, when somebody hating, it's just so loud. People who love you, they just love you. You You know, we with you, Steve, don't worry about that. But people who hate you, they posted. People don't always post love. That's my man, that's my girl. I love their boom. They may not post it, but when they hate you taters post. So do you I mean, between all the social media, multiple TV shows, do you worry about overexposure? Mm hmm,

not me, as long as they'll have you. I'm in sixty six percent of all American households on one of my platforms. That's three fifty some million people in America. But the world is almost eight billion people. And here's what I tell people all the time, because some people say, Steve, what about overexposure? Everywhere I go, I see the Nike swoosh. I don't care where I go I see the Nike swoosh. They ain't stopped making tennis shoes. They ain't stopped making

jogging suits. They ain't stopped making basketballs. That Nike swooshes everywhere. I saw it in Thailand, I've seen it in the Philippines, Africa to UAE, and they keep on making shoes. You don't think it's enough Nike out here? No, But Nike just keep on because no matter how popular you are, that are far more people who have no idea who I am than do. I might be in sixty six percent of American home, but I'm just in their home. That don't mean they know me. That don't mean they

know my name. My face recognition is really really high, and name recognition I get all get good ratings with all of that. But man, I can't worry about that because it's it's crazy. It's new people boring every day. Like for example, little big shots introduced me to a whole new and base. I've going places. I got six year olds, because you know when six year olds see you,

they just see you. They don't reason. I was in Walmart late one night buying some fishing gear like two am at a super Walmart, which is one of my favorite things to do. Really yeah, I go to like Walmart and like two in the morning, cause ain't nobody in there. I get to see what regular America is doing. Like I forgot that they hear pig feet in a jar. I forgot that ship because I got money now, so I forgot. So I go to Walmart and I stay posted well one two in the morning. I was buying

some fishing equipment. I was gonna go fishing early one morning, and the little boy goes, Mommy, that's Steve Harvey's right there. Boy, ain't no Steve Harvey in no Walmart. The little boy went around the corner and he goes, Mommy, I want to go and say hi to Steve Harvey. If you don't shut up talking about Steve Harvey. He ain't in no damn Walmart. Why would he be in a Walmart. I had to go around the corner because a little boy was just taking an unnecessary ass. It's on you.

So I went around the corner and said, ma'am, your son is absolutely right it ste because you know, kids just see what they see. They don't rationalize it the way like adult stud So little bit shots introduced me to a whole another group of people. I mean, I have fans that six years old and then family feud. It's old people. The old people loved me, and then middle aged people love me because family feud covers the basis. So I'm pretty good. From four to a hundred and sixteen,

pretty nice sweet spot for the down. Well, Steve, wish you the best of luck in nineteen with everything that you're doing. We're all watching and thanks for coming out to that. Hey man. It was one of the one of the queens interviews I had. Thank you all, really good. Thank you for thanks for tuning into another episode of strictly Business. Come back next week for another podcast and we sit down with some of the brightest minds and entertainment