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Podcast Corner: New show offers insight into Jerry Springer

Jerry Springer died over two years ago and so far in 2025 we've had the two-part Netflix documentary Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action, and now Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer, a nine-part documentary exclusive to Audible and likely for a wider release later this year. It's hosted by Leon Neyfakh, who's headed Slow Burn and Fiasco over the years. Those shows - and Neyfakh himself - are meticulous. During the second episode of Final Thoughts, he details a decades-old itinerary for a given day when Springer was running for Cincinnati city council: 'On one Saturday alone, he attended a local civics meeting, a neighbourhood festival, two parades, and a college football game. He then went to a wedding and a high school fair, and closed out the day with a telethon, a church dinner banquet, a cocktail party, and a visit to a local Democratic club.' This is where the podcast outranks the Netflix show - the first four episodes focus on his pre-chat show life rather than the de rigueur outrages for which his show became known. Springer was born in London during the Second World War to Jewish refugee parents, who emigrated to the US a few years later. They always discussed politics around the dinner table; it's where he started pontificating, says his sister. Springer was a city councilman, mayor of Cincinnati, a rising star in the Democrat Party (soundbites compare him favourably to Bill Clinton and he's dubbed 'Kennedy-esque'), and spent a decade as a news anchor. He undertook stunts for causes he believed in, such as sleeping overnight at a prison to explain the circumstances facing inmates. As his news anchor personality grew (was he news or opinion? The line grew every more blurred), stunts included dressing as a homeless man. The podcast naturally hits the same beats as the Netflix documentary from there, as The Jerry Springer Show - 'the worst TV show of all time' - battles for ratings and top spot with Oprah, runs ever crazier plots, is morally questionable with the guests it books, and producers detail the impact it took on their own lives ("Can we get this over with so I can leave? I don't want to do this, I don't know why I'm doing it, I'm tired of talking about the show, it's been a whole lifetime ago," says Richard Dominick, who viewers of the Netflix show will remember and was key to Springer's ascension). The show ran for 27 years and over 4,000 episodes, ending in 2018. Neyfakh ponders the impact it has left and offers a reason for the podcast's raison d'etre: 'It doesn't seem crazy to suggest that this globally iconic show had a real impact on how people treat each other and talk to each other and what sorts of things we're willing to share in public about our private lives. "It also doesn't seem crazy to suggest that Springer softened the ground for well, y'know...'' - cutting to a soundbite about Trump, a soundbite declaring him 'the Jerry Springer Show of politics'. Read More Young Offenders creator Peter Foott to make new film set in Kerry