The View
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The View, American daytime television talk show that has aired weekdays on ABC since 1997. It was created by journalist Barbara Walters and her longtime producing partner, Bill Geddie. The View features an all-women panel of hosts, and it is a venue for lively, informed debates on current events, especially politics.
Development
The idea for The View came from Walters, who had been asked by ABC executives to pitch a daytime show. She envisioned an unrehearsed discussion between diverse women of various generations. Two previous talk shows were the program’s most direct influences: the Sunday morning news program This Week with David Brinkley and Girl Talk, a daytime talk show hosted by Virginia Graham. In both instances, the shows served as forums for a mix of guests to engage in unstructured conversation about the news of the day. Treating this format as a blueprint, Walters and Geddie organized The View as a one-hour show that opened with a segment titled “Hot Topics,” in which the five cohosts discuss five issues of the moment, followed by an interview with a celebrity guest, and segments devoted to beauty, health, self-care, and entertainment. Decades later the program continues to adhere to this same structure, offering a mix of entertainment and information.
Debut and hosts
The View’s first episode aired on August 11, 1997, during which Walters shared her mandate for the program: “I’ve always wanted to do a show with women of different generations, backgrounds, and views. This is that show. We call it The View.” In addition to Walters, the other original cohosts were Star Jones, Joy Behar, Debbie Matenopoulos, and Meredith Vieira, who served as the moderator. At the time Vieira was most familiar to viewers from her stint as a correspondent for CBS’s prestigious news magazine 60 Minutes. Jones, a lawyer, had previously served as a legal correspondent for Court TV, and Behar was a stand-up comic. Matenopoulos was a recent college graduate.
In subsequent years the show’s lineup underwent numerous changes. Following the second season, Matenopoulos was replaced by Lisa Ling (1999–2002). Vieira left the program in 2006 to serve as cohost of The Today Show, creating an opening for a moderator, which was filled first by Rosie O’Donnell and one year later by Whoopi Goldberg. Jones also left in 2006, reportedly after salary negotiations broke down. Walters stepped down in 2014. Other high-profile hosts have included Elisabeth Hasselbeck (2003–13), a former contestant on the reality TV series Survivor; the actress and comedian Sherri Shepherd (2007–14); Meghan McCain (2017–21), daughter of U.S. Sen. John McCain; and Nicolle Wallace (2014–15), a former White House communications director for Pres. George W. Bush. In 2023 The View’s cohosts were Joy Behar; Alyssa Farah Griffin, a communication strategist who had served in the administration of Pres. Donald Trump; Sara Haines, a TV journalist; Sunny Hostin, a lawyer and legal analyst; and Ana Navarro, a commentator and political strategist. Whoopi Goldberg continued as moderator.
Impact and legacy
While Walters had initially imagined that the generational divide would be the most contentious one among the cohosts—in The View’s first episode the women discussed whether the name “John F. Kennedy” brought to mind the former president or his son—in subsequent seasons political differences proved to be the source of the series’s most-heated and high-profile debates. Embracing such conflict, The View sought out hosts of differing political ideologies. This often led to intense discussions that became as newsworthy as the topic being discussed—and occasionally continued behind the scenes. The drama and controversy only seemed to add to the show’s popularity and influence. In 2010 Barack Obama appeared on The View, becoming the first sitting president to visit a daytime talk show. The View is now recognized as an obligatory stop for presidential candidates and other political leaders wishing to reach a mass audience of women voters.
The success of The View changed daytime television, which had previously been regarded as less serious or prestigious. The program provided a successful template that numerous other talk shows subsequently adopted.