Tenia Watson at the 50th NAACP Image Awards
Courtesy of Tenia Watson
The eighth season of Fox’s award-winning daytime talk show, The Real, premiered in September with a new leader in Tenia Watson, who was promoted to serve as the program’s new executive producer.
While Watson may be new to her position, she’s worked as a producer on the show since its test run in 2013.
“The feeling that I have being EP now it’s like a full-circle moment,” Watson says. “Being someone who was there from the beginning, I’ve gotten a chance to see the show mature and move to the next level and get bigger and better with each season.”
And bigger and better the show has gotten: It earned an Emmy for Outstanding Talk Series in 2018 and two NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Talk Series in 2017 and 2019.
What hasn’t changed are the strong relationships she’s developed with hosts Loni Love, Adrienne Bailon Houghton, Jeannie Mai Jenkins and newcomer Garcelle Beauvais. Watson says she shared a heartfelt moment with the ladies when it was announced that she would be taking on the role of EP.
“They were really happy; they gave me a super great welcome. They all texted me, and we had tears on the phone,” says Watson. “They made me feel really good, and that has empowered me because if you have talent that believes in you and talent that is trusting you with the vision. And they believe in, ‘Hey, I know that you can do this. We trust you. Whatever vision you’re making, we trust you.’ That is so helpful in this position—having talent that has your back,” she says.
The Real is the only daytime talk show hosted exclusively by women of color. Watson is the first person of color or Black woman to lead the talk show. The series’ mission, says Watson, has always been to amplify the voices of women of color, and so to have the chance to do that from behind the scenes “feels amazing.”
“Sometimes, being a woman of color in society, you can feel like your voice isn’t heard. You can feel like your opinions or your views don’t matter,” she says. “We do have an obligation to make sure that voice is heard.”
As executive producer, Watson wants to create more conversations on women of color’s realities in their everyday lives.
“What are the things that we need to know? Whether it’s health-related, whatever it is, what are those things that we need to know? What are the discussions that we should be having? I’m pushing that more this season,” said Watson. The hosts, being women of color, they’re all on board because at the end of the day, these are not hard conversations to have. We are living it.”
Reflecting on the show’s progression over the years, Watson says one of her main focuses will be giving The Real back to the viewers.
“When we started this show, there weren’t huge names attached to it. We were only in 30 markets; we had very small beginnings. We had to really work hard to get people talking about our show, turn people on to the show and get those loyal viewers,” Watson says.
She also plans to create more segments and conversations built around what fans of the show want to discuss.
“We want them to feel like this is their show. Because it really is,” she says. “We wouldn’t be on the air if it wasn’t for our viewers.”
