THE SILVER-HAIRED MIC-WIELDER was king of the ITV nighttime schedules even before they went 24-hour. Not much to report, except he was always on your television when you rolled in from the pub at 11:30. 80s Springer, perhaps, but a) with 30 years more experience than Springer, and b) with bags more tact and bags less sensationalism than Springer. Retired in 1996 after notching up those 30 (count ’em!) years of audience/guest interaction.
EricW
November 29, 2009 at 6:22 pm
In 2002, Donahue attempted a comeback on one of the fifty million American news channels, but he had the misfortune of going on opposite the Evil Overlord of Opinion himself, Bill O’Reilly. Phil’s viewership this time around was so miserable that in the inevitable Saturday Night Live parody, one of his sponsors was This Space Available, Call For Rates.
DrNic
December 4, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Isn’t that a photo of the late, great Phil Hartman “doing” Donahue on SNL, rather than Phil himself?
Cindylover1969
December 6, 2009 at 10:26 am
As well as being a proto-Springer, it’s also perhaps not unfair to say that without him there would have been no trail blazed for the Big O (Oprah, not Roy Orbison).
Rick
December 11, 2009 at 5:47 pm
@EricW, to add to that, his show on MSNBC garnered the lowest Nielsen rating ever, a 0.1, which meant about 1,500 or so people were watching his show.
Neil
March 15, 2010 at 7:28 am
I remember reading somewhere, that he actually met his current wife on the show where she was a guest!!
Imagine Jeremy Kyle dating some of the chavs that appear on there? 😉
Richard Davies
October 25, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Not seen this though it was fun to see Lesley Neilson pretending to be PD in The Naked Gun 33 1/3.