“The
Price Is Right” host Drew Carey isn’t exactly brimming with confidence over his show’s good fortunes.
He works in TV, after all — where uncertainty lurks just around the corner.
“I always feel like I’m going to get fired, just because of the business I’m in,” says Carey, 54. “In TV you should never feel like you have a job forever.”
For all of his angst, Carey is sitting pretty atop “The Price Is Right,” daytime’s top-rated game show. It’s averaging about 5 million viewers on CBS and the most recent Nielsen data is particularly impressive: it’s up an average of 10 percent in all demos, particularly among its core audience of women 25-54 — extremely rare, particularly for a 40-year-old show.
Still, Carey is nervous.
“Every time I do a show I think, ‘I better go perform and do my job or they’ll fire me,’” he says. “It all comes down to ratings and money and you just can’t skate.
“Not that I feel threatened,” he says. “But it’s like being a car salesman — if you’re not selling you don’t get commission and you don’t make money.”
The former “Drew Carey Show” star succeeded Bob Barker on the iconic franchise in 2007.
“I can’t tell you how much I like doing this show,” he says. “I love meeting people and I love talking to them.
“One of my favorite parts of the show is talking to people off-camera during commercial breaks. There’s no way you can work there and be in a bad mood.
“And I love giving away not my money.”
Like his game-show colleague Steve Harvey (“Family Feud”), Carey first shot to prominence on a sitcom. “The Drew Carey Show” aired for nine seasons on ABC — but Carey says he won’t return to the sitcom fold.
“I’m done with that,” he says. “I never watch sitcoms. I can’t bring myself to watch. It doesn’t matter how good they are, but sitcoms are ruined for me because while I’m watching I’m going, ‘Oh, I wonder how many takes that took’ or ‘I wonder what alternative lines they had’ or ‘was that a good shot or a bad shot.’
“I’m watching [sitcoms] for all the wrong reasons,” he says. “But I think I’m one of the people who can be forgiven for not being able to stand them.”