Watching The View

Not content with only one job, as co-host at The View, Sherri Shepherd is reportedly producing a new sitcom. According to Variety, the show, which would appear on CW, will be based on Sherri’s own life.

The plot of the show will be a woman, played by Sherri, who discovers that her husband has been unfaithful and fathered a child with another woman. Sherri’s character invites the woman and child to move in to her home.

Dave Flebotte, from Will and Grace will be the show’s writer and the show will most likely film in New York, since Sherri just moved there to do The View. No word on any co-stars at this point.

The View, Sherri Shepherd, CW

Forbes magazine has released their “TV’s Top Earners” list and The View’s Barbara Walters has made the list.

It is no surprise that Oprah Winfrey tops the list, making $260 million from June 2006-July 2007.

Barbara Walters comes it at number 18, making $12 million during that same period.

For the full list from Forbes, click here.

Barbara Walters, The View, Forbes, TV’s Top Earners

Presidential candidate Barack Obama will not be on today’s episode of The View, as previously scheduled. I do not know the reason for the cancellation, but he is expected to reschedule at a later date. Today’s show instead will feature a full hour of “Real Life Hot Topics.”

This is quite a disappointment for me, as I have been looking forward to seeing him on the show since I first heard that he had been booked. Being from Illinois, I have been an admirer of Barack’s since his Illinois Senate days.

The View, Barack Obama

Now airing on E! is the True Hollywood Story of The View. Overall I was not impressed with the episode, as it did not really reveal anything new. What I usually like about the THS is that they get exclusive interviews with former colleagues or uncover some secret that was not widely known. This episode did not have anything like that.

The show gives a brief history of the careers of all of the hosts, both past and present. I did enjoy seeing old clips from when Meredith Vieira first started out in local television in Rhode Island. It also explained the beginnings of the show and Barbara Walters’ search for the initial hosts.

What I found most perplexing about this show was the people who they chose to interview for the show. They only had one host, Debbie Matenopoulos, and her interview clip did not even talk about the controversy surrounding her departure from The View or anything remotely scandalous. They had lots of old clips from the various hosts, but nothing done for this show.

The majority of the people interviewed had no actual connection with the show. There was an entertainment reporter, the editor of Gawker, and some man whose tagline said “Professor of Television.” (Who knew there was such a thing). I found the professor to be rather rude overall, like calling Lisa Ling “smarty-pants.”

If they were going to do a show where people regurgitated information that was widely spread in the media during the time it occurred (i.e. Star Jones leaving, the fight between Rosie and Elisabeth), they should have just had me on the show. Their “experts” certainly did not say anything that I could not have said.

They did have one strange former hairstylist on the show, but he did not really offer anything other than to say that he saw Debbie Matanopolous crying. Shocking!

Did any of you see the episode? Were you as underwhelmed as I was?

The View, E! THS, True Hollywood Story

According to TMZ, singer Barry Manilow has canceled his scheduled appearance on The View tomorrow because he disagrees with Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

Manilow is quoted as saying:

I strongly disagree with her views. I think she’s dangerous and offensive. I will not be on the same stage as her.

Do you all think that this is true? My initial reaction was that it seems sort of unlikely, however, TMZ claims that the above quote is directly from Barry and not from an “insider,” so I suppose it is true.

I wonder if there will be any mention of it on tomorrow’s show?

UPDATE: Now TMZ is reporting that the shows’s producers canceled on Manilow when “his people demanded that he appear on the show without Elisabeth.” In either case, it does appear true that he does not want to be on the stage with her. I am not really surprised that the producers are standing behind Elisabeth.

The View, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Barry Manilow

Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s husband Tim Hasselbeck lost his third-string quarterbacking job last weekend after being cut by the New York Giants. There is now speculation that Tim, who did not play a down last season, has reached the end of his career.

Elisabeth mentioned on The View not too long ago that Tim had gone to a training camp of sorts for wanna-be broadcasters. There is a good chance that this will be his next professional step.

Thanks to reader Ellyn for the tip!

The View, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Tim Hasselbeck

The LA Times is reporting that Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd have been offered the co-host spots on The View. ABC has yet to make an official announcement. If it is true, I certainly hope that Whoopi adds some pep to her personality because her guest spots were rather dull. If she doesn’t, what is left of the The View audience will be falling asleep…or changing the channel.

Former co-host on The View Star Jones Reynolds prepared for her new Court TV show by participating in the Turner Summer 2007 TCA Press Tour this past weekend. Her new show will premiere later this year. When asked to speak about her departure from The View, this is what she had to say:

I was part of an amazing pop-culture experience. Barbara Walters gave me the opportunity of a lifetime. So I’m not going to do anything that damages that warm feeling I had. I’m not going to pile on, I’m not going to participate in any of the silliness.

But if you want to know something I’m disappointed in, it’s the fact that there’s no person of color who has been permanently placed and part of the cast of The View. We all brought different values to the table and when you’re putting forth a show you need to make it look like the fabric of society. That’s the only thing I would encourage, a permanent person of color, who is a professional, because that was my job, to bring the facts to the forefront.

Source

Here are a couple of photos from the tour. I still have a difficult time recognizing her with her new look.

The View, Star Jones Reynolds, Star Jones, Court TV, Turner Summer 2007 TCA Press Tour

According to Page Six, Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, may be in the running for a host spot on The View. This seems unlikely to me given all the Donald Trump/Rosie O’Donnell drama that happened over the last season. I seem to remember Ivanka herself making some comments about Rosie, although I don’t recall what they were. Ivanka is certainly loyal to her father and Barbara Walters will have to have forgiven him for the whole Rosie debacle to consider hiring his daughter. Plus, would Ivanka want to go onto a show where one of the executive producers (Barbara) called her father “pathetic”?

Beverly Sills, famed American opera singer, has died at the age of 78 from lung cancer. You may also know Beverly from her appearance on The View last fall during “best friends” week. Barbara Walters brought her on to co-host as her best friend. The picture above of Beverly and Barbara is from 1994.

If you would like to read more about the great career and life of Beverly Sills, check out this article from The New York Times.

Barbara Walters, Beverly Sills, opera, The View

I reported previously how an article in The New York Times stated that the ratings for the The View remained up after Rosie O’Donnell’s departure. That article specifically said that while Rosie was there, the ratings were up 17% over the previous season in the same time period. The article claimed that in the first two weeks after her departure, the ratings were still “nearly a half million viewers” more than the previous year in that time period. The article said that the ratings remained 16% greater than the previous year.

Now Fox News is reporting that since Rosie’s departure, The View has lost over 400,000 viewers per day.

Indeed, “The View” suffered a 13 percent decline in household ratings, and a 9 percent decline in overall ratings during the combined weeks of June 4 and 11 compared with Rosie’s last two weeks.

Here are some stats: The week of May 21, Rosie’s last week (even though no one knew it), the show had an average of 3.8 million viewers a day. But the week of June 11, the ratings were down to 3.35 million viewers a day.

I do not pretend to be a mathematician or statistician, so maybe some of my readers can do the calculations for me. Is it possible for both sets of numbers to be correct? Could The View be down 400,000 viewers per day and still be up 16% over last year? Is this just a case of manipulating the same numbers to have the outcome desired by the writer? Or is one of these articles just completely wrong?

Rosie O’Donnell, The View, television ratings, New York Times, Fox News

According to Page Six, Barbara Walters has revealed why she has turned down the post-jail interview with Paris Hilton, even after Hilton agreed to do it for free.

Barbara said that she decided not to do the interview because it was not important news. She added that the interview was “not up to my standard” and “tawdry.” She also added:

Besides, it was a no-win. If I did a tough piece and her tears started to flow, it would be, ‘Oh, there’s Barbara Walters making people cry again.’ Too soft, and I’d be criticized.

I wonder if that second part, that it was a no-win situation, may have played a bigger role in her decision. It is certainly not beneath her to discuss Paris Hilton and other not-real-news stories on The View, so I cannot believe that was the overarching deciding factor. I think that she was afraid that she would be seen as too mean, or conversely, like she was continuing her Paris PR campaign. I am sure that her concern for how her friend Kathy Hilton would react to the interview weighed on her mind as well. Aside from the fact that it is not real news, I think that she was smart to not to the interview, where she was already too close to the situation and perhaps could not have been objective as she would have liked to be.

The Paris Hilton out of jail interview will air on Larry King Live on Wednesday. Obviously his standards are not nearly so high.

Barbara Walters, Paris Hilton, The View, Kathy Hilton, Larry King Live, Page Six

According to the New York Times, the ratings for The View stayed up in the first two full weeks following Rosie’s departure. In the weeks of June 4 and June 11, it drew an average of 3.4 million viewers per day. This is up 16% over the same period last year. During the course of Rosie’s tenure, the ratings were up approximately 17% over the previous year.

I don’t know if the ratings the first couple of weeks after Rosie’s departure really signify that the show will continue at its current popularity level. I know that a lot of people tuned in after Rosie left to see the tension, to see if the hosts were going to talk about the issue, etc. I think that we will need to revisit the numbers in a month or two to see if there is any real change. I also think that the selection of new hosts will make a big difference, obviously, in whether the ratings stay up.

Speaking of new hosts, another interesting point in the article was that Barbara Walters said that when she announces the replacement for Rosie, she will likely also announce the replacement for Star Jones. This we expected. What is different, however, is that she said that perhaps two new hosts could be used to replace Star. So, for example, they could put Gayle King in the moderator role and then have the other empty seat be a rotation of two people. What do you think of this idea? Perhaps they are having trouble deciding on one person for the spot? Or maybe they want to keep things interesting by not having the same five faces?

The View, View ratings, daytime television, Barbara Walters, Star Jones, Rosie O’Donnell, Gayle King

Barbara Walters came in at number 75 on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. The annual list features “the world’s most powerful–and best-paid–celebrities.” The list is created through an analysis of earnings, Google hits, press mentions, TV/radio mentions, and how often the celebrity appears on the cover of certain magazines.

According to Forbes, Barbara Walters earned $12 million last year.

The #1 celebrity on the list? Oprah Winfrey, who made $260 million last year!

The View, Barbara Walters, Forbes Celebrity 100, Forbes, Oprah Winfrey

Here are some just released photos of Barbara Walters, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Joy Behar at Barbara’s Walk of Fame ceremony!

Barbara Walters, The View, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck