Most people preparing to launch a daytime TV series spend their summer relaxing and planning to start what they hope will be a long run working in daily television. It’s a grind, but in success, can provide talent with years of job security.

Not Harry Connick Jr., whose new daytime entertainment show, Harry, launches this September. Instead of spending a peaceful summer at home after wrapping up Fox’s American Idol, he went on a 30-city tour. And that tour became much more than just Connick Jr. doing concerts, he also shot promos and segments and met with station managers in markets across the country.

Harry is being produced by NBCUniversal Domestic Television Distribution, and it’s airing on Fox owned stations in top markets across the country, including on WNYW New York and KTTV Los Angeles.

Connick Jr. himself admits that his new show is a little hard to describe because it hasn’t really existed in daytime before, but it’s heavily based on his live stage performances, in which he rarely does the same thing twice.

“The last thing I wanted to do was to be plugged into a format that already existed,” he said at PromaxBDA Station Summit 2016 in Las Vegas on Wednesday during a keynote session moderated by Ted Harbert, chairman of NBC Broadcasting. “We wanted to build a show around what I know how to do, which is relatively uncommon but is a comfortable place for me to be. “

That means that Connick Jr. won’t necessarily be sitting on a couch interviewing celebrities day in and day out, although he might do that occasionally. There will be a little bit of everything, music, dancing, comedy, interviews and man-on-the-street segments. His band will be on stage with him every day, and his producers will routinely surprise him with what they have up their sleeves for him.

“We’re doing this thing called ‘I Got This,’ which usually involves a single woman who’s working a couple of jobs or struggling in some way,” he says. Connick Jr. will swoop in and do the woman’s jobs for the day, while she goes off shopping or to the spa or something fun. He loves the surprise element of it all and thinks the audience will too.

Connick Jr. has stayed busy throughout his whole career, which got off to a great start when he was just 19 and tapped to do the soundtrack to When Harry Met Sally. Since then, he’s appeared on movies, Broadway and in films. Most recently, he was a judge on the final few seasons of Fox’s American Idol. That relationship with Fox has proven fruitful, with the stations supporting the NBCUniversal-produced show and even Fox Broadcasting jumping in to lend a hand.

“This is the first time I’ve felt like I’ve been a part of something way bigger than me,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been very lucky to have the situations I’ve had. I feel like this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

[Image courtesy of Andrew Ros]

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