JERRY SPRINGER DOESN'T WATCH HIS OWN SHOW! CLAIMS HE HAS BETTER TASTE

Funny right? Springer happily admitted that he doesn't watch shows like his own when he goes home, “What I watch are sports and political news, because I'm a political junkie.

That stuff I love. I don't watch my show: I've got some taste! I don't even tell my family I'm Jerry Springer. They think I'm an insurance salesman! It's horrible,” he joked.

Springer was in town to promote Tabloid, a show he's fronting for Discovery Networks that covers true-life crime and scandals. His on-stage interview mixed wisecracks – “I don’t know why they called me. Maybe they were drinking!” – with a spirited defence of the kind of television he’s most associated with."The Jerry Springer Show is now in its 23rd season.

Springer claimed that shows like The Jerry Springer Show and Tabloid – the latter will air in eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa on Discovery’s new ID Xtra channel – have global appeal, suggesting that if he were able to gather 20 16-24 year-olds from every country in the world in a room, they’d find common ground.

“Within 30 seconds the kids would be talking about who they're dating, sports, what's going on with school, did you watch this movie, did you listen to that song? We're the same,” he said. “I know we fight wars for our own identity. Stop it! We're the same. For some reason we always want to think we're different and therefore better, but we're the same.”

Springer also drew a parallel between his long-running chat-show and the growth of social media, as young people in particular take to services like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to express themselves.

“What is happening in the social media was inevitable. The coming of my show 23 years ago was inevitable. What we are observing, witnessing is the democratisation of culture,” he said.

“For thousands of years it was people sitting in an audience watching something happen on a stage, on a screen, on a ball-field. It was the audience and then the performers, whether it be sports, theatre, music, whatever. What technology has done is increase the move towards the democratisation.”