From predecessor to competitor: How Donahue took on Oprah
Phil Donahue, the pioneering daytime talk show host, died at the age of 88 over the weekend, after battling a long illness.
Donahue was an influence in his own right. Not only did his talk show help launch the careers of Oprah Winfrey, Montel Williams, and Ellen DeGeneres, he also pushed the envelope by tackling provocative and sensitive subjects.
One in particular was Donahue broadcasting a woman’s facelift to the public.
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Donahue airs a woman’s facelift on live television
In 1990, billions of people tuned into "The Phil Donahue Show" to watch a woman receive a facelift.
The audience gasped, screamed, with some laughter, as doctors cut away the woman’s skin.
Donahue admittedly said the episode was in part meant to attract viewers because "it was ratings week," as he competed with Geraldo, Oprah Winfrey and others.
"And anybody who tries to finesse that question is kidding themselves and an audience that knows better," he said in an interview.
The episode received much notoriety and backlash.
The late talk show host defended the episode, saying he didn’t show a lot of blood loss, which made viewing the episode a bit easier. He also alluded to the fact that any child who happened to watch the episode has probably seen a lot worse.
How Donahue paved the way for Oprah Winfrey
Media mogul Oprah Winfrey has often credited Donahue to her success as a long-time talk show host.
"If there had been no Phil Donahue show, there would be no Oprah Winfrey show," Winfrey previously posted on her website. "He was the first to acknowledge that women are interested in more than mascara tips and cake recipes—that we're intelligent, we're concerned about the world around us, and we want the best possible lives for ourselves."
TV personality Phil Donahue hugging talk show host Oprah Winfrey at the 25th anniv. celebration of the Donahue TV show, at the Ed Sullivan Theater. (Photo by Robin Platzer/Getty Images)
Winfrey’s highly popular daytime talk show aired for 25 years and 4,561 episodes, ending in 2011. Winfrey discussed topics ranging from sexual orientation, body image, health, and the idea of woman empowerment, especially for women of color.
Already a television journalist, Winfrey came to Chicago in 1984 to WLS-TV's morning talk show, "A.M. Chicago" competing with Phil Donahue’s show.
In fact, Winfrey was told by her bosses that she couldn’t beat Donahue in the ratings.
"The management, at my stations, said ‘Don’t worry about Phil because we know it’s impossible to beat Phil Donahue," Winfrey once told her talk show audience. "So I had no pressure to beat him whatsoever."
A month later "A.M. Chicago" was No. 1 in the market. A year later it was renamed "The Oprah Winfrey Show."