Entertainment

‘The Talk’ cast gets ready for Season 4

Julie Chen has been around long enough to know how fickle TV audiences can be.

So when it comes to her daytime show, “The Talk,” she says the best recipe for success is to leave well-enough alone.

“I think it’s a little bit of, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ ” Chen says about any changes for the show’s upcoming fourth season, premiering Monday, Sept. 9 (2 p.m./Ch. 2).

“We want to continue basically where we left off last season,” she says. “The key thing here is the chemistry between the ladies. We all have a good sense of humor; the rest kind of writes itself.”

“The Talk” had a strong third season, averaging 2.6 million viewers as TV’s fastest-growing daytime talker and finishing out its season with four of the most-watched shows in its history.

“None of us are holier-than-thou,” Chen says of herself and co-hosts Sara Gilbert, Sharon Osbourne, Aisha Tyler and Sheryl Underwood. “We’re not self-righteous . . . and we all make mistakes.

“We’re not perfect, and we’re going to reveal secrets to the public, and some secrets we’ve never even revealed to each other,” she says. “And that kind of sets the tone of our show.

“Sharon is the perfect example of that,” she says of Osbourne, married to rocker Ozzy Osbourne. “She’s been married to a guy who’s been a drug addict off and on for 39 years, but she sticks by him. We’re not ‘The Brady Bunch.’ ”

One element “The Talk” will add this season is called “Everybody Talks!” — in which viewers at home can send in videos, uploaded in real time, that will be played live during the “chat blocks” of the show.

“We’ve changed with the times, as everybody does, and we’ve embraced social media more,” says Chen. “We continue to be very authentic and genuine and open.

“We’ve never been close-mouthed about revealing things about our personal lives or our opinions — and you’ll see more of that.”

And, yes, Chen is aware that the show to which “The Talk” is most compared — ABC’s “The View” — has a new co-host (Jenny McCarthy). “I don’t pay any attention to [‘The View’] — I know it’s out there . . . but ever since I started working on ‘The Talk,’ I stopped watching ‘The View.’ It’s funny, I haven’t seen an episode [of ‘The View’] since the Rosie O’Donnell days. It’s interesting to see they’re shaking it up . . . but there’s room for everyone to be successful,” she says. “We’ve come up in the ratings and they’re not going anywhere.”