Phil Donahue
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Phillip John Donahue (born December 21, 1935 in Cleveland, Ohio) is the creator and star of The Phil Donahue Show (a k a Donahue) (1967—1996), the first of the syndicated talk shows where the host walks through the audience to let audience members make comments and ask questions. The show lasted for 29 years on TV, debuting as a Dayton, OH local program in 1967 and moving to national syndication two years later. It briefly emerged as an MSNBC offering in 2002-2003.
His shows have generally focused on liberal issues, like women's reproductive rights, consumer protection (his most frequent guest was Ralph Nader, for whom he campaigned in 2000), civil rights, and war protests.
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Personal history
In 1953 Phil Donahue was a member of the first graduating class of St. Edward High School, an all boys college prep Catholic high school run by the Brothers of Holy Cross in suburban Lakewood, Ohio. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a B.B.A. in 1957 A year later, he married his first wife, Marge Cooney. They had five children: Michael, Kevin, Daniel, Jim, Maryrose. He divorced Marge in 1975 and married actress Marlo Thomas in 1980.
The Phil Donahue Show
Donahue began his career in 1957 as a production assistant at 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 program 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 in Dayton, Ohio, where his interviews with Jimmy Hoffa and Billy Sol Estes were picked up nationally.
The Dayton-based Donahue hosted Conversation Piece, a phone-in talk show from 1963-67. There he interviewed civil rights activists (including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X) and war dissenters. He moved the format to television with The Phil Donahue Show on WLW-D (now WDTN) in Dayton, Ohio in 1967. The show was a success and was nationally syndicated two years later by Avco.
Donahue relocated the show's home base to WGN-TV in Chicago in 1974, and the show eventually took off, becoming both a national phenomenon and a pioneer. Later, he moved the show to WBBM-TV for its final years based in the Midwest.
In 1984, Donahue featured breakdancing for the first time on national TV, with the hip-hop group UTFO [1].
In 1985, Donahue moved the program's operations to WNBC-TV, following a month-long buildup in which NBC late-night host David Letterman would use portions of his national program counting down the days to Donahue's move with a huge calendar in his studio.
In 1992, Donahue celebrated the 25th anniversary of his local and national program with a special produced at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City, in which he was lauded by his talk-show peers. Ironically, in many corners he was seen as having been bypassed both by Oprah Winfrey, whose own hugely successful national show was based in Donahue's former Chicago home base; and Sally Jessy Raphael, whose own talk show was distributed by Donahue's syndicator Multimedia.
Donahue's show finally ended in 1996, culminating what remains the longest continuous run (27 years) of any midday national talk show in US history, not counting the weekday and Sunday breakfast programs and specialized shows such as the religious-oriented The 700 Club.
Donahue on MSNBC
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. On February 25, 2003, MSNBC canceled the show, citing low viewership. However, that month, Donahue averaged 446,000 viewers and was the higgest rated show on the network.[2][3] Other MSNBC shows, including Hardball with Chris Matthews and Scarborough Country, averaged lower ratings in 2005.[4] Later, the liberal media watchdog group FAIR received a copy of an internal NBC memo that mentioned that Donahue had to be fired, because NBC had to put a face of patriotism, in a time of war.[5] Donahue was a vocal critic of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. He mentioned the internal memo later in an interview on will-am, a public radio station.
Phil Donahue, prank victim
One of the most talked-about incidents in the Donahue show's history came on January 21, 1985, soon after the show's base of production moved to WNBC-TV. Seven members of the audience appeared to faint during the broadcast, which was seen live in New York. Donahue, fearing the fainting was caused by both anxiety at being on TV and an overheated studio, eventually cleared the studio of audience members and then resumed the show.
It turned out the "fainting" spell was cooked up by media hoaxer Alan Abel, in what Abel said was a protest against poor-quality TV.