The View (talk show)

The View
File:TheViewTitleCard.PNG The View title card
Created by	Barbara Walters Bill Geddie
Starring	Barbara Walters (1997–present) Joy Behar (1997–present) Elisabeth Hasselbeck (2003–present) Whoopi Goldberg (as of September 4, 2007)
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	2,210, as of January 1, 2007
Production
Running time	60 minutes
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	August 11, 1997 – Present

This article is about the talk show. For the Scottish band, see The View (band).

The View is a multi-Emmy Award award winning American daytime television talk show on ABC created by Barbara Walters and Bill Geddie. The show features a panel of women as co-hosts: Barbara Walters moderates discussions and is joined by Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck; along with a guest host, usually from the entertainment industry. On September 4, Whoopi Goldberg will join the panel as moderator, replacing Rosie O'Donnell.

The show premiered on August 11, 1997. It is produced and videotaped at ABC's television studio on West 66th Street in New York City, and is the first and only show on ABC's daytime schedule to broadcast in high definition. It airs live on the east coast Monday-Thursday, and is on tape most Fridays, with Friday's show typically taped on Wednesday or Thursday following that day's live show. The show begins live in the East Coast at 11:00:05 AM (sometimes 11:00:07 AM), and at 10:00:00 AM on the West Coast.

The concept of The View is to showcase women with a range of perspectives. The show opens each day with "Hot Topics", in which the co-hosts provide their commentary on the day's top headlines in politics and entertainment.

Season 1 (1997-1998)

A New York Times review, published ten days after the show premiered, describes what critic Caryn James thought was distinctive about the show:

The idea of women talking to one another on daytime television is not exactly radical. The idea that those women should be smart and accomplished is still odd enough to make The View seem wildly different. It actively defies the bubbleheads-'R'-us approach to women's talk shows....

After a year on the air, a review of the show from Salon.com attempted to summarize what had made the show a "(very guilty) pleasure" for its mostly female audience:

The View has caught on with viewers because it gives expression to feelings more complicated, and real, than its detractors realize. Like the Rat Pack, it's all about freedom in an uptight world. Vieira, Walters, et al., have confessed to a lot of things on the show that women are supposed to feel guilty about: forgetting to vote, being too lazy to exercise, hating skinny models, letting the kids watch too much TV, admiring Hollywood's latest hunk. And, apparently, they don't care what people think. Look, I'm not holding them up as role models. And I'm not saying they're representative of the death of feminism, or the rebirth of feminism, or anything like that. I just like the way they don't give a damn. If the Rat Pack was Everyman's id, The View is Everywoman's. These chicks do it their way, and are very inspirational to all women.

File:TheViewOriginal.jpg

The original panel of the View; Meredith Vieira, Star Jones, Debbie Matenopoulos and Barbara Walters in 1997.

The show premiered with four co-hosts: Meredith Vieira, Star Jones Reynolds, Debbie Matenopoulos, and Barbara Walters. Walters and Joy Behar initially took turns as the fourth co-host, an approach that at least one TV critic considered disconcerting:

The comedian Joy Behar, who appears on the days when Ms. Walters is off, is truly funny but hasn't blended in yet; at times it seems as if a Joan Rivers clone had parachuted in.

Behar soon became a regular co-host, with the panel expanding to five when Walters joined in. The subsequent opening credits for the show, featuring voice-over from Walters, made the show's premise explicit:

I've always wanted to do a show with women of different generations, backgrounds and views: a working mother; a professional in her 30s; a young woman just starting out; and then somebody who's done almost everything and will say almost anything. And in a perfect world, I'd get to join the group whenever I wanted ...

Season 3 (1999-2000)

The show's youngest co-host has changed twice during the show's history. Debbie Matenopoulos was featured from 1997 to 1999. When her contract was not renewed, Lisa Ling replaced her. Following Ling's departure, Rachel Campos and Lauren Sanchez competed in an on-air try-out.

Season 6 (2002-2003)

Ling departed in 2002 to host National Geographic Explorer. Elisabeth Hasselbeck replaced Ling in 2003 after Hasselbeck, Rachel Campos and Erin Hershey Presley were the finalists in a competition that ended with each of the three getting a week-long on-air tryout..

Seasons 9 & 10 (2006-2007)

File:TheViewCurrent.jpg

The panel for The View's eleventh season will include Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

The View experienced several host changes through the end of season 9 and the start of season 10.

Vieira's departure

First, Meredith Vieira announced on April 6, 2006 that she was leaving The View in order to replace Katie Couric as the co-anchor of NBC's The Today Show. Several candidates were rumored as possible replacements for Vieira, including Patricia Heaton, Connie Chung and Soledad O'Brien. On April 28, 2006, an announcement was made that former talk show host Rosie O'Donnell would be joining the show at the start of the tenth season in September 2006.

The announcement about O'Donnell fueled speculation that Jones Reynolds would leave the show when her contract expired in August. One reason for this speculation was a dispute regarding O'Donnell's public remarks about Jones Reynolds' dramatic weight loss. (Jones Reynolds had publicly stated that the weight loss was a result of diet and exercise, but O'Donnell suggested that she was not being truthful, and that it was a result of gastric bypass surgery).

Jones Reynolds departure

On June 27, 2006, Jones Reynolds announced her departure from the show on the air. Reynolds said she would remain on the show through July, but the next day Walters announced that Reynolds would no longer be a part of The View except for previously recorded segments. Both ABC and Jones Reynolds have publicly stated that the decision to not renew her contract was not related to the hiring of O'Donnell. In an interview with People magazine, Reynolds claimed the decision to leave was not hers, and that in April producers told her that her contract would not be renewed. According to an interview with the Associated Press, Walters stated that ABC executives had apparently decided not to renew Jones Reynolds' contract as early as the previous fall due to diminished approval for the co-host which was showing up in their market research. Walters said, "We tried to talk them [network executives] out of it, and we tried to give Star time to redeem herself in the eyes of the audience, and the research just kept getting worse." Walters has publicly commented about feeling "betrayed" by Jones Reynolds, since Jones Reynolds unexpectedly made the announcement two days ahead of schedule. "I love Star and I was trying to do everything I possibly could — up until this morning, when I was betrayed — to protect her".

Some media outlets reported that Gayle King, Oprah Winfrey's best friend, might take over for Jones, as she continues to be regularly seen as a co-host. However, King denied the reports in an interview with Access Hollywood. Actress Sheryl Lee Ralph publicly stated her interest in the role, during an interview with The Insider. Jones-Reynolds eventually landed a job with AOL as an "AOL Coach" and subsequently negotiated a deal with Court TV to host her own one-hour talk show.

Following Jones Reynolds' departure in June 2006, the show used guest co-hosts to fill her spot. According to People magazine these guest appearances served as auditions for a replacement host. In an interview with the New York Times, Walters said the show would begin looking for a replacement for Jones Reynolds beginning in the fall of 2006. Walters told AOL that while there was no front-runner, they were committed to the idea that Jones Reynolds’ successor be a member of a minority, so that the panel will be more reflective of society. Walters told AOL that she personally "miss(es) an African-American voice at the table".

On September 5, 2006, Rosie O'Donnell made her debut as a co-host. With the new changes in place, September 2006 brought in record ratings. A total of 3.1 million viewers watched that month, the highest total viewership the program has ever seen. The talk show also surged 34% in the advertiser-friendly "women aged 18-49" demographic, and sustained its early season success with its best ever November sweeps period. Entertainment Weekly magazine in March 2007 cited The View as doing for daytime TV what the Daily Show has done for nighttime TV in that it offers viewers a show that deals in genuine opinion and not mere fluff.

Along with the high ratings came controversy, and speculation about whether O'Donnell would continue on the show. On April 25, O'Donnell announced, and ABC confirmed, that she would be leaving the show in June 2007 after failing to reach a new contract agreement with ABC executives. O'Donnell claimed in a video blog for her website that while she wanted $10 million for a year contract, ABC wanted her for $6 million per year for a three-year contract. O'Donnell claimed her demands were justified with the increase in revenue the show experienced in the 2006-2007 season. Both parties could not come to an agreement to keep her on the show. O'Donnell and ABC announced May 25, 2007 that she would be leaving the show early immediately. O'Donnell stated on her official blog (www.rosie.com) that she would like Whoopi Goldberg to assume her role as moderator after she exits The View in June 2007.

O'Donnell departure

File:RosieElisabeth.jpg

Rosie O'Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck in a heated exchange on O'Donnell's last day on The View.

On the May 23, 2007, episode of The View, O'Donnell became engaged in a heated debate with co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck . The debate that day followed on from a discussion earlier in the week in which O'Donnell noted that 655,000 Iraqis have died since the United States invasion and asked "who are the terrorists?"

O'Donnell asserted that Hasselbeck was "cowardly" for not answering whether she believed O'Donnell thinks of American troops as terrorists O'Donnell also complained of how the media would portray her as a "fat, lesbian, loud" bully attacking "innocent pure Christian Elisabeth" whenever they disagreed on air. O'Donnell stated that she believed Republican pundits were misinterpreting her statements, and had asked Hasselbeck if she agreed with them. Hasselbeck claimed that she knew Rosie didn't think that US soldiers were "terrorists" but told O'Donnell that she needed to "defend herself" as it was not her place to defend O'Donnell's controversial statements.

When the debate continued past the five minute mark, guest co-host Sherri Shepherd tried to cut to commercial break. O'Donnell silenced the effort by saying "No, no, no we're not. No because we have a lot more time." Minutes later Behar endeavored again to end the argument by interjecting "Is there no commercial on this show? What are we on, PBS? Who is directing this show? Let's go to commercial!" The show cut to commercials shortly afterwards, ending the debate.

This was O'Donnell's last broadcast. She asked to be let out of her contract nearly a month before its expiration and was given permission to leave immediately.

Two days later, in a press release, O'Donnell said she bore no ill will towards Hasselbeck and said that she "loves all three women". However, in her blog, O'Donnell stated she had not talked to Hasselbeck, and that she was in shock and "stunned" that Ms. Hasselbeck had brought up Donald Trump, with whom O'Donnell had publicly feuded. She later posted a video on her blog discussing her future relationship with Hasselbeck and in a subsequent blog post stated that "I haven't spoken to Elisabeth, and I probably ever won't". O'Donnell also attempted to restate the controversial comment that had caused the feud with Hasselbeck saying, "the cowards who sent r [our] troops to this war . . . those men r [are] the terrorists." According to ABC News, O'Donnell said that she knew her time on the show was over when she saw the exchange reported in the news media with the split screen effect showing her and Hasselbeck on either side. ABC News also reported that O'Donnell's arguments with Hasselbeck brought the show its best ratings ever.

While the number of viewers was higher than the year before O'Donnell joined the show, in the month following her departure, viewership was down by an average of 232,000.

Season 11 (2007-2008)

Goldberg replaces O'Donnell

On April 30, 2007, Hasselback announced she was expecting her second child and will be on maternity leave during November sweeps, leaving yet another vacancy on the panel for several weeks. On the first live episode after O'Donnell's departure, Walters said that The View would fill both O'Donnell and Jones-Reynolds's seats on the panel.

At the end of the August 1 broadcast, Barbara Walters introduced Whoopi Goldberg as the new moderator as of September 4, when the show begins its 11th season. She said no word about the replacement for Star and it is unkown if anyone will take that spot

Similar shows

Before The View

• Leave It To The Girls was a program that aired in various incarnations over four decades. Beginning on radio in 1945, the show began to simulcast on television in 1948. The premise was simple: three celebrity women discussed a relationship topic from a woman’s point of view. A fourth member of the panel was a man, to represent the male point of view. The program ceased production in 1963. However a new version was resurrected in 1981 (under the title Leave It To The Women). This time taboo subjects of the 1980s began to be discussed, in an effort to be more contemporary. The change in subject matter did not help the ratings, and the show ended in 1982.

• A similar show was produced in the 1960s Girl Talk. Hosted and moderated by Virginia Graham, it consisted of three celebrity women discussing current events, politics, women’s issues and their feelings about each other. Guests like Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Lee Remick and Totie Fields would freely express their opinions.

• Barbara Walters hosted a similar program during the early and mid-1970s called Not For Women Only. A panel of four experts, moderated by Walters, discussed serious topical issues of the day.

• Mantrap aired in 1971. The program was very similar to Leave It To The Girls, with three celebrity women and a male guest. Moderated by Alan Hamel, regular panelists included Suzanne Somers, Jacqueline Susann, Carol Wayne, Margot Kidder, and Phyllis Kirk.

• Mo Gaffney hosted a 1991 program on Comedy Central called Women Aloud. The show featured a rotating panel of comediennes, in a format similar to the later Bill Maher series Politically Incorrect.

• Equal Time was a political discussion show from a woman’s point of view featuring commentators and Washington insiders. Two women co-hosted the CNBC program, each representing the liberal and conservative viewpoint. Representing the liberal viewpoint as co-host were Jane Wallace (1993-1994), Dee Dee Myers (1995-1997), and Stephanie Miller (1998-1999). Representing the conservative viewpoint as co-host were Mary Matalin (1993-1996) and Bay Buchanan (1996-1999). Torie Clarke was a regular fill-in when Buchanan was absent.

After The View

The View format has been replicated by other television shows, both in the United States:

• Later Today was a talk show that debuted in fall 1999, hosted by Jodi Applegate, Florence Henderson and Asha Blake. Produced by NBC News, the program was intended to air immediately following the then two-hour Today Show. Low ratings for the show caused its cancellation in August 2000, and it was replaced by a third hour of Today in October 2000.

• Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus was a talk show that dealt with relationship issues. It originally had one host, Cybill Shepherd. During the middle of its run, producers decided to switch to a four-person format. The new hosts were Cristina Ferrare, Bo Griffin, Drew Pinsky and Rondell Sheridan. The changes did nothing to improve the ratings and the program was cancelled in the spring of 2001.

• The Other Half was hosted by four men, and ran from 2001-2003. Produced by NBC and Dick Clark Productions, the program aired opposite The View in many markets. Like The View, the program was directed towards women, but with male co-hosts, including Dick Clark, Danny Bonaduce, Mario López, Dr Jan Adams (2001-2002), and Dorian Gregory (2002-2003). The program primarily focused on how men and women interact.

• In 2002, CBS News's The Early Show eliminated the traditional morning-show formula of a male/female anchor team with a weatherman and a newsreader. The revamped version had four hosts: Harry Smith, Hannah Storm, Julie Chen and Rene Syler. CBS tried to hire then View co-host Vieira to head up the broadcast, but she declined.. The four-anchor format lasted for four years, and ratings increased slightly. Despite that, CBS was still not satisfied with the numbers. In December 2006, anchor Rene Syler announced her departure from the program in what is expected to be a series of changes to the four-person team.

• In 2004, Life & Style debuted, hosted by Jules Asner, Cynthia Garrett, Lynne Koplitz, and Kimora Lee Simmons. The show was designed to appeal to a younger audience, with a heavy emphasis on fashion and beauty segments. The show was cancelled in March 2005.

And abroad:

• Loose Women is a popular British talk show presented by four women in the afternoon on ITV1 that debuted in 1999, with a very similar concept to The View.

• Kalam Nawaem, (roughly translated to mean "Sweet Talk") is an Arabic version of The View that first aired in 2002. It airs on the MBC network and has four female co-hosts who discuss a variety of topics some which are considered taboo in the Middle East.

• The Catch-Up a Australian version of The View with similar format which debuted in February 2007, only to be cancelled 4 months later due to poor ratings

Awards

The View's longtime director Mark Gentile received a Daytime Emmy Award in its first year and again in 2004. The show's producers shared the "Outstanding Talk Show" Emmy in 2003 with The Wayne Brady Show.

Since 1999, the show's hosts have received Emmy nominations every year, although they have not won.

Criticism

While some people feel The View is an intelligent show, there are others who feel it is trivialized gossip. Specific criticisms include the belief that hosts are either selected for or told to portray a certain personality instead of being genuine, that Walters is old and out of touch, that Jones Reynolds was pretentious and hypocritical, that the panelists spend too much time talking about trivial, superficial subjects such as celebrity babies and not enough time on important topics like politics and social issues, and that the discussions veer too much into the area of toilet humor and titillation.

Because of this perceived lowest-common-denominator appeal and triviality of some topics, "The View" has often been likened to a "Hen House" full of clucking chickens , an image that was parodied by both the sketch comedy program MADtv and the animated comedy series Family Guy. Saturday Night Live parodied Walters' original introduction to the show's hosts as "a working mom, a sassy black woman like I’ve seen on TV and a total idiot". Near the end of the skit, Ana Gasteyer (in character as Cokie Roberts) warned Walters (played by Cheri Oteri) that "this show will sink you like a stone."

Accusations of bias

The View has been accused of a variety of forms of bias over the years.

While diverse in terms of host age and backgrounds, the show has been criticised by many conservatives for what is seen as a liberal bias and a lack of diversity in political views. However, the show has had several conservative guest hosts (e.g., Ann Coulter, Dennis Miller, Kathie Lee Gifford) and regular co-host Hasselbeck is an outspoken pro-life conservative. In the April 9, 2007, issue of People magazine, Hasselbeck stated that she and O'Donnell get along well off-stage, that they e-mail frequently, and that she credits O'Donnell with inspiring her to speak out more on the program.

On January 21, 2003, Jennifer O'Neill was a guest on the show promoting her "Silent No More" campaign with the goal of reducing teenage abortions. Having had an abortion herself, O'Neill spoke about her personal experience. Conservatives believed she was handled harshly by hosts and ridiculed by actress Katey Sagal in the following segment.

Joy Behar has said that conservatives are "so annoying", but that she would likewise take on liberals if they were in power. Nevertheless, conservative bloggers contend that Hasselbeck is the only conservative on the show, as opposed to the liberal presence of Behar and O'Donnell.

There also have been accusations of religious and racial bias levied against the program. Rosie O'Donnell has made the statement that "radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America." William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, accused Behar and O'Donnell of several instances of anti-Catholic bigotry and accused Walters of tolerating it.

O'Donnell also was criticized for racial insensitivity by simulating the Chinese language in a show segment in December 2006, for which she apologized, but claimed she is a comedian, and meant no offense by her joking.

International Broadcasts

• In Australia, the program is shown each weekday on the W. Channel on cable television, on a 1-day delay. The episodes are also repeated in blocks over the weekend.
• In Canada the show is available on ABC affiliates and on the CTV broadcast network in simulcast with ABC.

Trivia

• The show was originally called The View From Here. However, there was already a program airing in Canada with the same name, and ABC execs decided to change the name to simply The View.
• Their first day on-air was August 11, 1997 with Tom Selleck as their first guest; Regis Philbin was the first guest in their pilot episode.
• The co-hosts used to sit around a full-circle table. However, it was very difficult to interact with the audience with half of them having their backs against the audience; the table was quickly changed.
• Their set was actually a leftover set from a cancelled soap opera, The City. ABC didn't commit to their own set until their fifth season.
• Since the show's premiere, The View has been the subject of numerous parodies. One such was a recurring skit on Saturday Night Live in the late 90s, portraying Jones Reynolds (Tracy Morgan), Vieira (Molly Shannon), Behar (Ana Gasteyer) and Walters (Cheri Oteri) as jealous older women and Matenopoulos (played by Claire Danes, Cameron Diaz, Sarah Michelle Gellar and by Matenopoulos herself) as a simple-minded bimbo who was consistently being punished for making stupid comments. In 2005, MADtv parodied the show in a sketch, exaggerating the women's speech as simultaneous bickering and featuring Michael McDonald as a farmer treating the women as hens, tossing chickenfeed on the ground and producing eggs from the women's seats. The role of Walters was played by Stephnie Weir. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz from the animated show Family Guy, was another parody where the women were heard clucking like chickens, with Jones Reynolds laying an egg. They were also parodied in The Simpsons with the show being called "Afternoon Yak" where the members of Afternoon Yak resemble the hosts of The View. The studio audience has also been compared to seals, as there are many breaks for applause during the show.
• Hustler magazine featured a cartoon with the women spreading their legs with the producer commenting that this is the real "view".
• Executive producer Geddie has evolved into an on-air foil, especially for Walters and, before her departure, Vieira. Sometimes he is asked to answer factual questions, other times brought in for a male point of view. Nevertheless, he rarely joins the hosts on stage.
• In an episode of Family Guy, Peter, after discovering his feminine side, tells a woman at a party, "I don't care how many letters we've gotta write. The View should be on for three hours. I mean, you just get going, and then BOOM! It's News at Noon."