It is 9:40 on a weekday morning. You have the show playing in the background while you clear email, and Drew Barrymore is leaning in, holding the hand of a guest who started a nonprofit out of her garage. You think: our founder has a better story than that. So you open a tab, type how to get on the Drew Barrymore Show, and find a dozen listicles that tell you to “send a great pitch” and little else.
This piece is for the person who has to make the booking happen. It covers what the seventh season is built around, the five doors that lead onto that stage, a scoring drill for deciding which door is yours, and a documented case from September 2026 of a small business that got picked, including how the first email arrived.
What Season 7 Producers Are Building Right Now
Start with the facts, because most pitches miss on basics. The Drew Barrymore Show is a nationally syndicated daytime talk show produced and distributed by CBS Media Ventures and taped in New York City. Drew Barrymore and Jason Kurtz are the executive producers, and Kurtz is also the showrunner, according to his bio on Paramount Press Express. Kurtz has spent his career in daytime. He co-created and co-executive produced “Steve Harvey,” which launched in 2012, and his credits include “The Queen Latifah Show” and “The Bonnie Hunt Show.” Ross Mathews is listed as co-anchor of Drew’s News and a producer.
Season seven premiered Monday, September 14, 2026. Back in March, stations owned by CBS, Nexstar and Sinclair renewed the show for seasons seven and eight, so a relationship you build with a producer now has at least two seasons of runway. The audience is growing, too. CBS Media Ventures reported on October 28, 2026 that the season to date averaged 1.90 million total viewers, up 36% year over year, and that week five hit a series high 1.26 household rating. (TheWrap points out that the show is measured as two half hours rather than one hour, so the comparison with rival talk shows is not apples to apples. The year over year growth still holds.)
What matters for your pitch is what the season is made of. The season seven launch release names a new “Personal Space” interview series, where each conversation airs as a broadcast segment with an extended cut on the show’s YouTube channel. It names collaborations with PopUp Bagels, Nextdoor and Geeks Who Drink. And it names a season-long “Drew-Gooder” initiative with Nextdoor that spotlights people making a difference in their communities. Read that list again. Celebrity conversation, consumer partners, community heroes. Two of those three are open to people who are not famous.
The show describes its own mix on its press page as exclusive celebrity interviews, lifestyle segments, social media influencers and feel-good news, all filtered through what it calls Drew’s “optimistic lens.” It also claims more than 14 million followers across platforms. Pitch as if your segment will live twice, once on air and again as a clip.
Which Door Fits You? The Five Routes Onto Drew’s Stage
There are five practical ways onto that set. They do not compete with each other, and most people only ever try one.
The first door is the studio audience. Tickets are handled through 1iota, the audience platform linked from the show’s homepage. The listing requires guests to be 18 or older, shows tapings in New York (a recent one listed an 11:00 AM ET start), and limits on-air giveaways to residents of the 48 contiguous states and DC. Audience members do end up on camera and in challenges. It is the lowest-effort door and the one you control least.
The second door is the “Share Your Story” hub, linked as “be on the show” on the official site. This is the show’s casting intake, and it is more specific than most people realize. Live callouts include unsung heroes, a “Drew’s News Deskpert” advice letter that Drew and Ross answer at the news desk, nominations for “Designed by Drew,” product suggestions for “Drew’s Reviews,” a fan suggestion box, and topical calls such as veterans who are pillars of their community, people over 60 who are loving life, and tri-state residents for audience competitions. Each form caps your story at 250 words, lets you attach a photo, and asks whether you are willing to appear.
The third door is the community-hero track. The Drew-Gooder segments, run this season with Nextdoor, look for people and businesses doing good. Producers scout for these, and candidates also arrive through the hero nomination forms.
The fourth door is the producer pitch. An author, expert or brand with a news peg reaches a segment producer directly, usually through a publicist. One warning: the contacts listed on Paramount Press Express are publicity contacts for the show itself. They handle press coverage of the program, not guest bookings, and sending them a guest pitch burns a contact you may need later.
The fifth door is being findable. Producers go looking. The Jake’s Ice Cream booking below began with a producer reaching out, not with the shop pitching. Local press coverage, a strong search result, and clips that show you comfortable on camera are how a producer finds you when they need three candidates by Friday. If you are mapping how to get on the Drew Barrymore Show over a full season, this is the door that pays off months after you start working on it.
Score Your Story With the Five-Petal Fit Score
Before you fill in a form or brief a publicist, run your idea through a drill I call the Five-Petal Fit Score. It is built on what the show says about itself and what it has aired this season. Score each petal 0, 1 or 2, then add them up for a total out of 10.
Petal one is optimism. Does the story end with someone better off? A 2 is a story where the good is the point. A 0 is a story where the good is a marketing claim attached to a product.
Petal two is segment match. Can you name the recurring segment your story belongs in: Drew’s News, Drew-Gooders, Drew’s Reviews, Designed by Drew, a Deskpert letter, Personal Space? Naming one earns a 2. “A general interview” earns a 0.
Petal three is visual proof. Daytime television needs something to point a camera at: a shop, a before and after, a product Drew can hold, a group of people whose reaction will be real because the moment is real. A story that only exists in words scores 0.
Petal four is proximity. The show tapes in New York, and several callouts are limited to the tri-state area. If you can be in the studio on short notice, score 2. If the story is far away but a crew could film it on location, as one did in Virginia, score 1. If neither is possible, score 0.
Petal five is the peg. Why this week? A book release, an anniversary, a seasonal hook, a national awareness day. The show’s own business tag page, for example, includes Daymond John segments tied to Black Entrepreneur Day. A real date on the calendar scores 2.
Seven or above, pitch now. Five or six, fix the weakest petal first, and it is usually segment match or visual proof. Four or below, the show is not your target this season, and your time is better spent building the local coverage that opens the fifth door later. The score is blunt on purpose. It makes you say out loud what a producer will be thinking in the first ten seconds of reading your email.
How Jake’s Ice Cream Got Picked (And What It Teaches)
Here is a documented case from this season. Jake’s Ice Cream, a shop on Columbia Pike in Falls Church, Virginia, was featured on the September 23, 2026 episode in a Drew-Gooders segment, according to Northern Virginia Magazine. Robin Rinearson opened the shop in 2021 after her nephew Jake, whom she describes as differently abled, was laid off from his job. The shop employs almost exclusively adults with physical and developmental disabilities and serves 24 rotating flavors.
Rinearson told the magazine how it happened. She received an email from Corey Hewitt at Paramount explaining that the show was looking at several businesses and people around the U.S., and asking for a video conference first. After that call, a second email arrived saying the shop had been chosen. A camera crew came to the shop, interviewed staff and Rinearson, and presented a surprise check for $5,000. The shop also created a new flavor for the segment, Cookies and Dreams.
Run that story through the Five-Petal Fit Score and it lands at 9 or 10. Optimism is the entire premise. It fits a named, season-long segment. It is visual: ice cream, a storefront, a staff you can meet. Proximity was solved by a location shoot. And the peg was the segment itself, which needs a steady supply of exactly this kind of story.
Three lessons transfer to your own pitch. First, the producer found them, which means the shop had a public footprint strong enough to surface when someone went looking for stories like theirs. Second, there was a screening call before the yes, so treat any first contact as the audition and prepare for it as you would the taping. Third, the shop made something for the show. A new flavor gave the segment a moment no other program had.
Write the 250 Words Like a Segment Producer
The Share Your Story forms give you 250 words. That is close to the length of a producer’s internal pitch note, so write one.
Open with the segment name and a one-sentence story. An invented example: “For Drew-Gooders, a retired teacher in Yonkers who repairs donated bikes for every kid in her building.” Then give the stakes in two sentences: who is better off, and how you know. Then describe what a camera would see. Then say who is available and when, including whether you can get to New York. Close with a link to one piece of proof, such as a local news story or a 60-second video, and attach the strongest photo you have.
Cut the adjectives about how inspiring the story is, the founding history of your company, and any request for a product mention. Read the consent language before you submit. The forms state that you grant the show the right to use what you send, that you receive no payment for submissions, and that the material will be used to decide whether to invite you on. That is standard, but your legal or comms lead should see it before a brand submits anything.
If you are working out how to get on the Drew Barrymore Show as an expert or author, the producer-pitch door is your main route, and the Drew’s News desk is the likeliest landing spot. Drew’s News is topical, so position yourself as the person who can explain a trend that Drew and Ross will react to, not as a guest who wants to talk about a book. The same structure works in an email of about 150 words, with a subject line that names the segment and the peg. What changes is targeting. A pitch to a named segment producer who has booked a similar story beats a pitch to any general inbox. Finding that person is most of the work, which is why a current journalist and producer contact list, like the one Instant Press maintains, saves weeks.
Your Next 72 Hours
Do this before the end of the week. Today, watch three full episodes, write down every recurring segment name you see, and mark the ones that featured non-celebrities. Tomorrow, score your story with the Five-Petal Fit Score and write the 250-word version for the single segment it fits best. On day three, pick your door: submit through the matching Share Your Story form, send the 150-word version to one named producer, or, if you scored under five, pitch two local outlets so the next producer search finds you.
That is how to get on the Drew Barrymore Show without guessing. Choose one segment, score it without flattering yourself, submit, and put a reminder on your calendar for 30 days out to try the next door.