US talk show host Phil Donahue dead at 88

NEW YORK

Phil Donahue, whose pioneering daytime talk show launched an indelible television genre that made household names of Oprah Winfrey, Montel Williams, Ellen DeGeneres and many others, has died. He was 88.

NBC's “Today” show said Donahue died on Aug. 18 after a long illness.

Dubbed “the king of daytime talk,” Donahue was the first to incorporate audience participation in a talk show, typically during a full hour with a single guest.

The format set “The Phil Donahue Show” apart from other interview shows of the 1960s and made it a trendsetter in daytime television, where it was particularly popular with female audiences.

Later renamed “Donahue,” the program launched in Dayton, Ohio, in 1967. Donahue’s willingness to explore the hot-button social issues of the day emerged immediately, when he featured atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair as his first guest. He would later air shows on feminism, homosexuality, consumer protection and civil rights, among hundreds of other topics.

The show was syndicated in 1970 and ran on national television for the next 26 years, racking up 20 Emmy Awards for the show and for Donahue as host, as well as a Peabody for Donahue in 1980. It included radio-style call-ins, which Donahue greeted with his signature, “Is the caller there?”

The show’s last episode aired in 1996 in New York, where Donahue was living with his wife, actress Marlo Thomas, at the time of his death. The two had been married since 1980. Donahue had five children, four sons and a daughter, from a previous marriage.

Donahue returned briefly to television in 2002, hosting another “Donahue” show on MSNBC. The station canceled it after six months, citing low ratings.