Posted on: Monday, June 16, 2003

After nearly six years, 'The View' is winning acclaim

By Christy Lemire
Associated Press

The view from "The View" has changed since the show debuted nearly six years ago.

The structure of the live morning show is still the same: A group of women of various ages gets together to dish and debate about everything from Martha Stewart to methamphetamine-addicted mothers to pop-star makeovers.

Only now, those women are finally Emmy winners.

After being nominated the past five years in a row — and losing every year to "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," which went off the air in 2002 — ABC's "The View" received a Daytime Emmy last month for outstanding talk show, which many predicted would go to tough-love psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw.

Co-hosts Barbara Walters, Meredith Vieira, Joy Behar and Star Jones also have their first live prime-time special planned, "The View: His & Her Body Test" (9 tonight in Hawai'i), which will feature celebrity appearances and a real-time quiz on health issues that viewers can take from home.

And they're still looking for someone to join them in the fifth chair at the table, which has been empty since the youngest member of the panel, Lisa Ling, left in December to become an international reporter for National Geographic Television and Film.

Guest co-hosts, including Carnie Wilson, Fran Drescher, Molly Ringwald and Jen Schefft from "The Bachelor," have filled in since then.

But Bill Geddie, who serves as co-executive producer with Walters, acknowledged that "The View" is in flux.

"No doubt about it," he said after a recent episode. "We need that young person on the show."

Geddie said the search will begin in earnest this fall and will be similar to the one that took place in 1999, when they auditioned women to replace Debbie Matenopoulos, the show's original Gen-Xer who was booted after being spoofed as an airhead on "Saturday Night Live."

"Getting Lisa was a very big thing for us," said Geddie, who's also executive producer of "The Barbara Walters Specials."

"That whole contest and all the drama leading up to it was a very big promotional device for our show and helped us for many years to come, for many years after that, and now we need the same sort of thing to occur," he said. "We need another little jump start here."

The Emmy — which Walters said was so unexpected that some of the show's producers had kicked off their shoes during the ceremony at Radio City Music Hall — also could provide a little jump.

"The View" tied for the award with "The Wayne Brady Show," another surprise winner in only its first year on the air. Brady also won the Emmy for best talk show host.

"We were amazed," Walters said. "I mean, we lost best host, and how you can win best show — which is the host — and not win best host is beyond me. It's like winning best picture but the director doesn't get the Oscar."

Behar's theory on why Emmy voters hadn't given them the honor before: "There's always one of us to hate."

"When you're voting, you might like Meredith and hate me and so you're not going to vote for all of us," said the comedian. "There's one of us who's going to annoy you and you're going to say, 'I'm not voting for her.' And if you think about it, Regis did not win until Kathie Lee was gone."