Phil Donahue, the originator of the U.S. talk show, dies aged 88

Broadcaster Oprah Winfrey presents Phil Donahue with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards in May 1996 in New York, USA.

Broadcaster Oprah Winfrey presents Phil Donahue with the Lifetime Achievement Award during the Emmy Awards in New York, U.S., May 1996
Phil Donahue, the talk show king who dominated broadcasters in the 1960s and 1990s by carrying a microphone through the audience and listening to opinions on unconventional topics such as homosexuality and feminism, died at his home in Manhattan, New York, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. He was 88. According to the Associated Press, Donahue has been remembered as a legend of daytime television talk shows, winning the Emmy Award, the most prestigious award in the U.S., 20 times during his time in the broadcasting industry, and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden in May this year. "Donahue led the nation's discourse through thousands of conversations," President Biden said at the time. In 1980, he won the Peabody Award, a prestigious award in the broadcasting industry.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1935, Donahue started a talk show called The Phil Donahue Show in November 1967 at a station in Dayton, Ohio. His first guest was an American atheist activist named Madeline Murray O'Hare, nicknamed "America's most hated woman," who used to have an outspoken discussion with a variety of people on his talk show. The New York Times reported that Donahue asked questions ranging from lofty themes such as human rights and international relations to subjects that were blushing like "male stripper" and "safe and promiscuous sex." Notably, he was popular at the opening, which was considered an official talk show until then, as he and a guest talked on a single topic without a monologue, band, supporting actor or sofa, and sometimes held a microphone and asked questions to the audience. In the late 1980s, at the end of the Cold War, he and Vladimir Pozner, an experimental international broadcaster, called the U.S.-Soviet Space Bridge, where audiences looked at the screen and asked questions to audiences in other countries. His talk show style had a big impact on the show hosts. Broadcaster Oprah Winfrey once said, "Without Phil Donahue, there would be no Oprah Winfrey Show."

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Donahue was broadcasted through more than 200 stations nationwide, with an average viewer rating of 8 million. People reportedly waited for a year and a half to get tickets to the studio. Countless celebrities appeared on the show, including pop star Elton John, boxer Muhammad Ali, and former South African President Nelson Mandela. However, he left the broadcasting industry in 1996 after losing ground to dozens of latecomers including The Oprah Winfrey Show, which began in the 1980s. He returned to MSNBC in 2002 and hosted The Donahue Show, which ended in six months due to sluggish performance as well. The Washington Post reported that he dealt with serious and candid topics and popularized cheerful formats in which viewers ask questions and give opinions, opening the door for successors including Oprah Winfrey.