Maurice Richard Povich is a retired American television personality, best known for hosting the tabloid talk show Maury which aired from 1991 to 2022. Povich began his career as a radio reporter, initially at WWDC. In the late 1980s, he gained national fame as the host of tabloid infotainment TV show A Current Affair, based at Fox's New York flagship station WNYW. In 1991 he co-produced his own show The Maury Povich Show, which in 1998 was rebranded as Maury.
Povich in 2006
A tabloid talk show is a subgenre of the talk show genre that emphasizes controversial and sensationalistic topical subject matter. The subgenre originated in the United States and achieved peak viewership from the mid-1980s through the end of the 1990s. Airing mostly during the day and distributed mostly through television syndication, tabloid talk shows originated in the 1960s and early 1970s with series hosted by Joe Pyne, Les Crane, and Phil Donahue; the format was popularized by personal confession-filled The Oprah Winfrey Show, which debuted nationally in 1986. The format has since been emulated outside the United States, with the United Kingdom, Latin America and the Philippines all having popular shows that fit the format.
Scenes from The Les Crane Show