Ellen DeGeneres Show to bring back live audience with Covid-19 safety measures

Show has hired a Covid compliance coordinator

Ellen DeGeneres on the set of The Ellen DeGeneres Show (YouTube/TheEllenShow)

The Ellen DeGeneres Show will bring back a live audience with safety measures against Covid-19.

Forty viewers were to be present in person during the episode airing on Wednesday, with 70 additional people attending virtually.

DeGeneres’s show returned in September for an 18th season. So far, the audience had been fully virtual.

The programme is expected to follow safety guidelines against the spread of Covid-19, as the coronavirus pandemic continues.

It’s one of the first shows to reinstate a live audience. Saturday Night Live, NBC’s comedy mainstay, has done the same, and according to The New York Times, has cast and paid some members of its studio audience to comply with New York State reopening guidelines.

The show has hired a Covid compliance coordinator, who was introduced to viewers on Tuesday by DeGeneres. Covid compliance coordinators have been hired at various workplaces to ensure that measures designed to limit the spread of the coronavirus are implemented.

The Ellen DeGeneres Show was the subject of an investigation into claims that it was a toxic work environment over the summer.

DeGeneres, who has hosted the daytime talk show since 2003, apologised to those affected and sought to take responsibility in a monologue on the first episode of this new season.