At the End of a Long Run, Phil Donahue Looks Back

NEW YORK —  When Phil Donahue’s ratings began to decline 18 months ago, the company that syndicates his talk show called in a prominent TV consulting firm for advice on how to boost viewership. “We hired them to ‘help save Phil,’ ” Donahue recalled, the indignity of the experience playing across his face.

The consultants’ recommendation? Don’t do political shows.

“They were right in terms of ratings,” Donahue said. “Political shows do not do well, and people seem even less curious about what’s going on beyond our shores. When we had Nelson Mandela on [after he was released from prison in South Africa], the show got a 1 rating.”

Donahue, who had helped change TV campaign coverage by interviewing the 1992 presidential candidates on his show, was still doing well enough to be able to ignore the consultants’ advice. But it was at his own peril: His ratings continued to decline in the face of a cacophony of competitors who have turned his once-daring openness about personal issues into “I Slept With My Mother’s Boyfriend.”

Once the undisputed ruler of daytime and a nine-time Emmy Award winner, Donahue dropped to No. 13 in the ratings this season. After he lost a key New York outlet and KNBC-TV Channel 4 in Los Angeles announced it would not be renewing the show, he decided to quit rather than be canceled.

After more than 28 years and nearly 7,000 shows, Donahue taped his last “Donahue” here Thursday. He has no idea what he’ll be doing next.

“When I walk out that door at the end of the last show, I have no professional commitments to anybody or any company,” Donahue said in an interview in his office Wednesday. “Everyone around here is looking at me like I’m some kind of science project--’How am I going to respond to not working every day?’ I think my wife [actress Marlo Thomas] is wondering what she’s going to do with me. I’ve got a boat, and I’m financially independent. But I’m 60 years old--I don’t want to sit in a rocker for the rest of my life.”

One area that interests him, he said, is documentaries. “I’d like to be able to take the time to research and develop a story that reveals something about America,” he said.

Although Donahue has finished taping shows, “Donahue” will continue for several more months, depending on the contract in each market. He has stockpiled new shows to air through May and to mix in with repeats during the summer, including interviews with some of his most frequent guests, such as Gloria Steinem (airing Monday), the Rev. Jesse Jackson (May 13) and Ralph Nader (June 6). The final episode is intended to air whenever the show finishes its run in each city--which in KNBC’s case probably will be Sept. 6.

The TV landscape has changed dramatically since Donahue went on the air with a local talk show in Dayton, Ohio, on Nov. 6, 1967. But as he prepared his final shows, Donahue was reluctant to criticize his younger competitors.

“I’ve had so much criticism from Christian conservative groups--they’ve petitioned sponsors and organized to get me off the air for shows I’ve done over the years--that I don’t want to give any aid and comfort to” the recent crusade to clean up talk shows, he explained.

Donahue maintained that former Education Secretary William Bennett, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), who are leading the charge against talk shows, don’t watch the programs they criticize. “They wouldn’t know Ricki Lake if they met her on the street,” he said.

“I’m against government interference in the daytime creative process. I’d rather let the marketplace decide,” Donahue continued. “The more government interference you have, the more you intimidate sponsors. If you have sponsors producing your TV shows, you’re going to get wet Kleenex [in content].”

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Still, it was clear as he talked that Donahue is uncomfortable with some of the tactics of daytime shows today.

“Many of the shows today are like versions of ‘The Dating Game.’ I watched a show that Jenny Jones did recently on one-night stands and people who wanted to return to them. Jenny was asking all the details of this young woman’s one-night stand, and she was giving them. They were practically showing Polaroids of the sexual encounter. Then they introduce the young man--and he tells the audience how she was the only thing available that night. It was rough on her. . . . I’ve never consciously humiliated a guest on my show.”

In the social foment of the 1960s and 1970s, Donahue was a pioneer in discussing both personal and political issues with a largely female audience. His show also was one of the first to have the audience ask questions on the air.

“At the time, the male-dominated media thought there was nothing dumber than a dumb housewife,” Donahue said. “But we had women in the audience talking about politics and the Vietnam War. . . . We also talked about unnecessary surgery for women, homosexuality and other topics that hadn’t been discussed much on the air.”

Donahue has been criticized for some shows over the years. In one well-publicized stunt, he wore a dress on the air. “I’ve never apologized for wanting to entertain people as well as inform them,” he said. “You can’t reach people if they’re not listening.”

But there was always a line of taste he wouldn’t cross, he maintained, acknowledging that “it’s harder in today’s crowded talk-show landscape.”

Are the more outrageous TV hosts pandering to the public or merely reflecting their times? “We’ve got a culture in decay,” Donahue responded. “You can see it in our students’ test scores--and on talk-show TV.”

* “Donahue” airs weekdays at 2 p.m. on KNBC-TV Channel 4.