A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
A pioneer in daytime television has died at the age of 88. NPR TV critic Eric Deggans says Phil Donahue invented the audience-participation talk show.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Phil Donahue may have developed a reputation for presenting passionate discussions on hot-button topics through cheeky stunts, but he told NPR in a 2021 interview that one of his early inspirations was mainstream news journalists, who he saw as fearless truth-tellers.
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PHIL DONAHUE: They went right for the jugular. It appeared to me they didn't have to be popular. They just had to be aggressive and have their facts straight.
DEGGANS: Donahue channeled that search for truth into a winning daytime TV formula, sitting guests before a large studio audience, stalking through the crowd with a microphone, mixing his questions with queries from onlookers, including quizzing Donald Trump on whether he lost money in a 1987 stock-market crash.
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DONAHUE: And this guy can't buy your lunch after Black Monday. How did you do? You must have lost your shirt. Come on.
DONALD TRUMP: No, I was lucky I was out of the market pretty much, Phil.
DEGGANS: Born Phillip John Donahue in Cleveland, Ohio, he graduated from the University of Notre Dame and worked for a radio station in a small town in Michigan, where he marveled at being able to quiz the mayor in the station's hallway.
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DONAHUE: And so it was a - kind of a first-grade lesson on the power of journalism.
DEGGANS: By 1967, he had moved a radio talk show he hosted in Dayton, Ohio, to local TV, and "The Phil Donahue Show" was born. Donahue spoke to a predominantly female TV audience without talking down to them. He ruled daytime TV for many years, until Oprah Winfrey debuted her own similar style of talk show in 1986. By the 1990s, other hosts joined in, like Geraldo Rivera and Jerry Springer. Donahue retired from daytime TV in 1996. He returned to television in 2002, hosting a show for MSNBC, but he told NPR in 2021 that show ended less than a year later.
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DONAHUE: I was fired because I did not support the invasion of Iraq. I mean, kaboom - I lost not only my show, but my career.
DEGGANS: Donahue also co-wrote a book in 2020 called "What Makes A Marriage Last" with wife and actress Marlo Thomas, who he had married 40 years earlier after meeting her as a guest on his show. He died on Sunday.
Eric Deggans, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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