Room on 'The View'
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 26, 2007
NEW YORK - Rosie O'Donnell's stormy tenure on The View will be a short one. The opinionated co-host was unable to agree on a contract with ABC, and she'll leave the show in June.
O'Donnell said on the show Wednesday that she wanted to stay for one more year, and ABC wanted three. Locking in O'Donnell to a three-year deal could protect ABC from year-to-year salary increases if the ratings continue to be good for the show. So she decided to leave, although she said she will appear occasionally next season for things like a planned one-hour special on autism.
"It just didn't work," she said, "and that's show biz. But it's not sad because I loved it here, and I love you guys, and I'm not going away."
O'Donnell has helped raise the ratings for the daytime chat show invented by Barbara Walters. But her outspokenness has caused continual controversy, including a nasty name-calling feud with Donald Trump that placed Walters squarely in the middle.
"We have had, to say the least, an interesting year," Walters said.
Walters said she had nothing to do with the decision, reached after talks between representatives for ABC Daytime and O'Donnell.
"This is not my doing or my choice," she said.
Walters was frequently left to clean up the damage in O'Donnell's wake. She did it most recently Monday, when O'Donnell was criticized for using bad language and attacking media mogul Rupert Murdoch from the dais of the annual New York Women in Communication awards luncheon.
"I would like to point out that Rosie's view is not always mine," Walters said. "I would like to say for the record that I am very fond of Rupert Murdoch."
In the Trump imbroglio, O'Donnell was reportedly mad that Walters did not come more swiftly to her defense, while Trump said Walters told him she didn't want O'Donnell on the show, a claim Walters denied.
Trump quickly went on Fox News Channel on Wednesday to claim that O'Donnell was fired by ABC because of remarks made at the Women in Communications luncheon. "Barbara's the happiest person in the world that Rosie's been fired," Trump said.
Cindi Berger, spokeswoman for O'Donnell and Walters, denied Trump's claim and said she wondered how he would know what had happened in her client's contract talks.
Despite controversy - or maybe because of it - O'Donnell was good business for ABC. Ratings for The View during February sweeps were up 15 percent in key female demographics over the same time in 2006.