Phil Donahue most likely to exit, stage left

USA Today ^ | Peter Johnson

[MindBender26]

Phil Donahue's days at MSNBC are numbered.

NBC News executives, under pressure from corporate owner General Electric to improve ratings, are likely to cancel his talk show by year's end.

If Donahue gets the ax, it'll be the strongest indication yet that star power alone doesn't make you a hit on cable and that, with a variety of viewing options available, cutting it there is tough.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Saturday Night Live had a brutal sketch on Donahue this past Saturday (interesting because MSNBC is of course an NBC property).

Guests were "Al Sharpton", who repeatedly explained that the show's ratings were bad because: "People don't like you, Phil."

"Barbra Streisand" appeared behind a lens so heavily covered with Vaseline she was almost invisible.

And a disgusting "Michael Moore" explained that he essentially never bathes and never changes his clothes - he just gets new clothes once a year because he grows into a larger size.

When it was time to cut to commercials, all that appeared was the MSNBC logo with "Your Ad Here."

When a skit like this appears, it's time to start making new career plans.

[Clovis_Skeptic]

averaging 392,000 viewers in prime time

A geographic breakdown on these viewers would probably show they live in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston.

[InvisibleChurch]

ah , leave him on...please help sink the ship, phil

[goldstategop]

Don't forget Ithaca, NY.

[InvisibleChurch]

...although if they did as the headline indicates, ratings would soar through the roof...for one night

[jerod]

This article fails to acknowledge that his exit is due more to the fact that he's a liberal wacko, than to any other factor.

Goodbye Phil, for the last time.

[Clovis_Skeptic]

Don't forget Ithaca, NY.

Yeah, and some counties in good ole Florida!

[tuna_battle]

"Saturday Night Live" did a Donahue spoof this past weekend. When Donahue (played by Darrell Hammond) checked his own ratings on live TV, up came three shows. In the ratings, Donahue was beating a 24 hour eye-surgery channel, but was trailing the Palestinians For a Better Israel channel (or something like that). Anyway, Donahue was not the worst show on cable, just the second worst.

When Donahue took a break for commercials, a blue screen came up and showed something like "To advertise here, please call 212-555-5555".

[goldstategop]

Yup... the Palm Beach dummies must be sorry to see Donahue go. Oh parting is such sweet sorrow. Bwahahaha!!!

[bandleader]

Not only should DonaWho be BANISHED from the airwaves,this Mega-Liberal should be required to re-build the house that he and Marlo purchased for the specific purpose of tearing it down to improve their view.Furthermore,this house should be given to The Homeless(and their ilk)whom they profess so much affection for(with OUR tax-dollars)!!!!!

[LibertarianLiz]

Jerry Nachman seems to be the only relatively succesful new show on MSNBC.

I thought I had read somewhere that Jerry Nachman had been cancelled? They were replacing him with a show devoted to the upcoming Iraqi war or something.

[SunnyUsa]

"Donahue was the subject of a biting NBC Saturday Night Live parody Saturday in which Darrell Hammond played the liberal talk-show host.

This was actually pretty funny!
They sure had his lieberal bias down pat!

[Jack of Clubs]

As Darrell Hammond said in the SNL spoof, Dona-who?'s audience is so low that it's within the margin of error of the ratings service . . . which means that there's no guarantee that anyone is watching the show.

Goodbye Phil.

[TwoStep]

**Bump** ~~ for a live link!

[SunnyUsa]

ROFL .... for anyone who missed the SNL skit on donahue you did a great job describing it! :)

My favorite was the totally blurry "special lens" view of Babs.

[baseballmom]

I have tried to watch Phil on MSNBC. Really, I have. As a young mother in '78 to early 1980's, I really liked his daytime show. He had on interesting guests and talked about things that were pertinent to my stage in life. This gave way to Sesame St and Mr Rogers and I hadn't seen him in years. What the heck happened?

I do watch Chris Matthews, because I think he is an old fashioned democrat (like I used to be), not a leftist nut. I know he talks a mile a minute, which can be annoying, but, I don't think he interrupts any more than O'Reilly or H&C. I really don't like Hannity & Colmes. Sean comes across as pompous to me, and I can't stand Colmes.

Nachman was one of their better shows, and they shoved him to the 5 o'clock time slot and left Donohue at 8? Pretty stupid IMO.

I wish they had left Brian Williams News on instead of deep sixing him over to CNBC.

They should re-run Imus in primetime - but Imus is so pro-Bush, that it would drive the die hard libs crazy.

[COBOL2Java]

ah , leave him on...please help sink the ship, phil

My sentiments exactly! You hear that huge flushing sound? That the sound of Liberal bucks going down the drain keeping Donahue's show going - dollars which may have been sent to other Liberal causes. I say keep him on!

[alnick]

I noticed yesterday that Fox News has snagged another MSNBC reporter: Greg Jarrett.

[Renatus]

I have never watched one of his shows. I've done my part.

[1Old Pro]

Next to fall will be Klintoon butt boy, steffy stenpanopoulos