In 2002, American television personality

Phil Donahue Phillip John Donahue (December 21, 1935 – August 18, 2024) was an American media personality, writer, film producer, and the creator and host of '' The Phil Donahue Show''. The television program, later known simply as ''Donahue'', was the fir ...

returned to television to host a talk show called ''Donahue'' on

MSNBC MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...

Cancellation

Its debut

Nielsen ratings Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...

were strong, but its audience evaporated over the following months. In late August 2002, it received one of the lowest possible ratings (0.1), less than MSNBC's average for the day of 0.2. On February 25, 2003, MSNBC cancelled the show, citing low viewership. However, that month, ''Donahue'' averaged 446,000 viewers and became the highest rated show on the network. Other MSNBC shows, including ''

Hardball with Chris Matthews ''Hardball with Chris Matthews'' is an American television talk show hosted by Chris Matthews. The program premiered on the now-defunct America's Talking network in 1994 (as ''Politics with Chris Matthews'') before moving to CNBC, and then to M ...

'' and ''

Scarborough Country ''Scarborough Country'' was an opinion/analysis show broadcast on MSNBC Monday to Thursday at 9 P.M. ET. It was hosted by former congressman Joe Scarborough. ''Scarborough Country'' made its debut in April 2003. On average, ''Scarborough Count ...

'', averaged lower ratings in 2005. Soon after the show's cancellation, an internal MSNBC memo was leaked to the press stating that Donahue should be fired because he opposed the imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq and that he "represents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. He seems to delight in presenting guests who are antiwar, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration’s motives". Donahue commented in 2007 that the management of MSNBC, owned at the time by

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

, a major defense contractor, required that "we have two conservative (guests) for every liberal. I was counted as two liberals."

Keith Olbermann Keith Theodore Olbermann (born January 27, 1959) is an American sports and political commentator and writer. Olbermann spent the first 20 years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and ra ...

, who joined the network after the show's cancellation, told ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' in 2007 that the cancellation had as much to do with the show's production cost as it did with political orientation. An NBC News executive said that the show was very expensive to produce, because it involved a studio audience.

Legacy

In September 2002,

Oprah Winfrey Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an American television presenter, talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietor. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show' ...

praised Donahue saying "the bottom line is we need you, Phil, because we need to be challenged by the voice of dissent".Oprah Talks to Phil Donahue
(page 10), oprah.com, from the September 2002 issue of ''

O, The Oprah Magazine ''O, The Oprah Magazine'', also known simply as ''O'', is an American monthly magazine founded by talk show host Oprah Winfrey and Hearst Communications. In 2021, Winfrey and Hearst rebranded it as ''Oprah Daily''. Overview It was first pu ...

''. Retrieved July 25, 2016.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Donahue (2002 talk show) 2000s American television talk shows 2002 American television series debuts 2003 American television series endings American English-language television shows MSNBC original programming