“Judge Judy” is ending its celebrated daytime run this spring, but the woman behind the gavel isn’t going anywhere.
Last year, Amazon’s IMDb TV was the surprise winner of Judy Sheindlin’s follow-up court TV series. While no premiere date has been set, IMDb TV executives are hopeful the new show will be able to premiere sometime this year.
“Don’t hold us to anything. I can say that we’re obviously still still working our way through all of the details. But the goal is to bring that to audiences this year,” Lauren Anderson, IMDb TV’s co-head of content and programming, told TheWrap.
The series, which is still untitled, will feature “no-nonsense, expeditious Judge Sheindlin’s signature adjudication style with a new array of cases, litigants and judgments,” according to Amazon’s description.
Anderson expanded a bit more in detail into how they’re melding what Sheindlin’s audience is used to with how one programs for a streaming service.
“She’s someone who her fans are used to seeing her two times a day — sometimes there’s more depending on sort of where they’re watching — five days a week. And so we’re having conversations about what does that look like in streaming. And so it could be a number of things, it could be daily, there could be all sorts of things that we could do there.”
Sheindlin has hosted “Judge Judy” since 1996, netting a mammoth $47 million salary that put her at the top of Forbes’ list of highest-paid TV hosts in 2018. For the last 11 years, “Judge Judy” has led the syndication ratings race and figures to cap off her 25-year run with a 12th-straight victory this year.
Anderson is very aware of what fans of “Judge Judy” want from the new show. “There are, for sure, similarities” to ‘Judge Judy,’” she said.
When the show premieres, it will be the first daytime series to air completely in streaming and one way that IMDb TV is hoping it can set itself apart from its many streaming competitors. IMDb TV executives described to TheWrap their idea of creating a “modern broadcast network.” And what’s more “broadcast” than daytime syndication?
“She’s going to adjudicate cases, she absolutely is going to be in the center of a court show adjudicating cases,” Anderson continued. “What we really are looking to do is a number of things. We think that there’s an opportunity to lean into what is at this point, really sort of pop culture iconic status that she has.”
Anderson said they’re even toying with giving viewers a behind-the-scenes look into the court process. “
“There are aspects of the court process that I think audiences are familiar with, that you’ve not yet seen inside of her legacy show that we’re excited to bring into the show. And then you’ll also just see, like modern sort of updates in terms of the set,” she said.