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Matthew Simmons
2 of 2
Matthew Simmons
“I’m still not a hugger,” Ben Aaron, Nashville newcomer and good-natured co-host of the city’s unlikely daytime-TV hit, Pickler & Ben, says.
Nevertheless, the native New Yorker is in the middle of a big bear hug, and his country star co-host, Kellie Pickler, thinks it’s starting to look more natural.
“The first time he came here and people were coming up and hugging him, he was, like, checking to make sure he still had his wallet,” she says with a laugh, waving goodbye to crewmembers after a fun-filled photo shoot for Nashville Lifestyles. “But, for season two, he’s gonna be hugging everybody.”
Aaron may still be getting used to Southern hospitality, but the Pickler & Ben audience, which now includes about 80 percent of the country, has certainly warmed up to both hosts. After one season, Pickler & Ben has effectively quadrupled its coverage area and snagged three daytime Emmy nominations, earning the hosts a whole new season of family-friendly fun, starting September 17.
Created by country star Faith Hill; co-founder of Happy Street Entertainment and former executive producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show, Lisa Erspamer; and president and CEO of Sandbox Entertainment, Jason Owen, the show has been unique from the beginning. It caters to a heartland audience and focuses on positivity, representing a breath of fresh air on the crowded daytime-TV landscape. There’s an in-show shopping component, so fans can purchase many of the products featured on screen, and, of course, it’s based in Nashville—not the more conventional TV hubs of New York or Los Angeles.
But, still, a big part of the show’s success is the chemistry between Pickler and Aaron, who, as a bonafide Southern belle and a goofball New Yorker, are nothing if not the quintessential odd couple.
“Right off the bat, we had this brother-sister vibe,” Pickler explains, tossing a mischievous smile across the table to her co-host. “And he has a funny accent, so I don’t know what he’s talking about half the time. It just works.”
Both are TV veterans but new to the world of show hosting, and they figure that first-time excitement is showing through.
“We’re learning as we go,” Aaron says. “So, the audience is either learning with us or laughing at us trying to figure it out, and it’s a lot like a Lucy-and-Ricky-[Ricardo] situation. Kellie and I can goof on each other, and there’s never a single moment where it’s like, ‘Oops. Is that bad?’”
There’s plenty of goofing to enjoy on Pickler & Ben, like watching the playful pals try out Goat Yoga, forcing Aaron to experience fried okra, or sharing an Italian-style meal with The Sopranos actor Steve Schirripa—he even honored Pickler with her very own “mob name,” Kellie “The Ice Pick” Pickler.
Likewise, Dolly Parton and scores of other celebrities have been featured. But most of the stories on Pickler & Bencenter on uplifting matters of everyday life, family, and community—stories like Atlanta’s “ICU Grandpa,” David Deutchman, who cuddles babies in intensive care when their parents are unable. In season one, the show hosted a surprise reunion between Deutchman and some of the children he’d comforted long ago, now scampering about as healthy kids.
“Honestly, it’s been wonderful being on the other side of the microphone,” Pickler says.
She got her start as a bubbly contestant on American Idol and charted a series of country singles through 2014. Lately, she’s starred on her I Love Kellie Pickler reality show and even won Dancing With the Stars in 2013, while Aaron’s background is in the quick-hitting world of a news correspondent.
“It’s not about me; it’s about our guests,” Pickler goes on. “I love sharing whatever they have to tell, and I find that’s more common in my everyday life anyway. I’ll sit down on a plane next to a complete stranger and get their whole life story.”
“It’s a family-friendly show,” Aaron adds. “We don’t do politics or gossip or anything like that. It’s just fun, interesting, heartwarming stories, the stuff we really need right now. We have a nice balance of wacky and wonderful.”
Pickler & Ben fans have the show’s producers to thank for that. As The Oprah Winfrey Show was winding down, Erspamer and Owen realized that Winfrey’s viewers—many of whom lived in the nation’s flyover states—would soon find a hole in their daytime-TV schedule. Erspamer and Owen decided to fill it and chose Nashville for the setting, creating the city’s first nationally syndicated daytime talk show.
“We felt very passionate about speaking to the heartland similar to the way Oprah did,” Owen explains. “That’s really where it was born.”
“I knew there was a big portion of the country that wasn’t being serviced in the daytime arena,” Erspamer adds. “Most of the people who were developing shows were focusing on L.A. and New York, which makes sense for ratings and things like that, but I really felt like there was the whole rest of the country that nobody was really speaking to.”
“It was really built around the audience, and also Nashville itself, which is like a character on the show,” Owen goes on. “Just like Oprah made Chicago one of the characters of her show, [Nashville is] a destination city, and people are fascinated by it. And, for people on the coasts, it’s a really aspirational place to be.”
So far, it looks like Erspamer and Owen were right. As a town full of storytellers, Nashville gets featured frequently on the show, and, in just one season, Pickler & Ben went from being seen on 40 channels nationwide to 171. It has earned three Emmy nominations (including one for Outstanding Informative Talk Show Host), and, partly due to a gorgeous modern-farmhouse chic set, which was designed by creator Hill, right down to furniture from her personal collection, the show is quickly becoming one of city’s tourist attractions.
“We have a waiting list of people coming to Nashville just to be audience members,” Owen explains. “And, in New York and L.A., that’s really rare—they often have to pay the audiences to get a full studio. That’s when you know you have something.”
Without giving anything away, there are plenty of surprises in store for season two, including more high-profile guests and lots of outside-the-studio wackiness. But there’s at least one thing the hosts won’t be doing.
“Ben’s going skydiving next season!” Pickler chirps, adding with a wink that she’s done it before and would definitely go again.
But Aaron just shakes his head. Learning to hug is one thing, but jumping out of a plane? That’s a step too far for this New Yorker.
“It’s never going to happen!” he says in mock big-city indignation.
Instead, he’ll keep his feet on the ground, and he’ll keep exploring what makes his home-away-from-home so special.
“I was thinking to myself last season, What if we took this show to New York?” he says. “But Nashville has a comfortable vibe. It’s sweet, welcoming, warm, and, if you go to New York or L.A., it’s completely different. We like it here.”