Phil Donahue

Phillip John Donahue (born December 21, 1935 in Cleveland, Ohio) is the creator and star of The Phil Donahue Show (1969-1996), the first of the syndicated talk-shows, where the host walks thru the audience to let audience members make comments and ask questions. His shows have always focused on liberal issues, like women's reproductive rights, consumer protection (his most frequent guest was Ralph Nader, who he campaigned for in 2000), civil rights, and war protests.

Personal history

Donahue graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a B.B.A. in 1957 A year later, he married his first wife, 1975 and married actress Marlo Thomas in 1980.

Talk-show career

Donahue began his career in 1957 as a production assistant at college TV and AM station KYW in Cleveland. He got a chance to become announcer one day when the regular announcer failed to show up. After a brief stint as a bank check sorter in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he became news director for WABJ radio, Adrian, Michigan soon after graduating. He moved on to become a stringer for the CBS Evening News and then anchor of the morning newscast at WHIO-TV, where his interviews with Jimmy Hoffa and Billy Sol Estes were picked up nationally.

There he hosted Conversation Piece, a phone-in talk show from 1963-67. There he interviewed civil rights activists (including Martin Luther King, Malcolm X) and war dissenters. He moved the format to television with The Phil Donahue Show, Dayton, Ohio in 1967, and was syndicated two years later. He relocated to Chicago, 1974-85; and then to New York City in 1985.

He received twenty Daytime Emmy Awards; Best Talk Show Host, 1988; the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood, 1987; and the Peabody Award, 1980.

Despite of being the first, he eventually lost ratings to similar shows like Oprah, and his daytime show was cancelled in 1996.

In 2002, Phil Donahue returned to television to host a show called Donahue on MSNBC. Its debut ratings were strong, but its audience evaporated over the following months. In late August 2002, it got one of the lowest possible Nielsen ratings (0.1), less than MSNBC's average for the day of 0.2.

But the show's ratings increased during the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq when it was the only politically liberal show on television. The show was so popular that it became MSNBC's top-rated show. However, Donahue's producers say that they were continually pressured to "balance" anti-war voices with an equal number of pro-war voices, and then provide a greater number of pro-war voices. (Needless to say, MSNBC did not feel anti-war voices needed such balance on other shows.) Finally, on February 25, 2003, MSNBC canceled the show, citing low viewership, even though it was still MSNBC's number one show.

Leaked internal memos provided an alternate explanation for the cancellation. One noted that Donahue presented a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war......He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." It worried the show would be "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."