Apr 25, 2007 11:20 am US/Eastern
Rosie O'Donnell Says Goodbye To 'View'
Host Said Wednesday About Negotiations "Just Didn't Work"
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
ABC has announced that Rosie O'Donnell is leaving "The View" after only one controversial season.
The network wasn't able to come to terms on another contract with O'Donnell. However, the host announced Wednesday that she will be back to guest host next year. "I'm not going away I just won't be here everyday," O'Donnell said on "The View" Wednesday.
O'Donnell said in a statement that "my needs for the future just didn't dovetail with what ABC was able to offer me."
"This has been an amazing experience," she said, "and one I wouldn't have traded for the world."
Her last day will be sometime in the middle of June.
O'Donnell has helped raise the ratings for the daytime chat show invented by Barbara Walters. But her outspokenness has caused almost constant controversy, including a nasty name-calling feud with Donald Trump that dominated headlines for weeks.
Other feuds include Paula Abdul, and Kelly Ripa.
Barbara Walters says she's "grateful" that O'Donnell spent a year with the show. She says she's "sad" O'Donnell is going.
"I induced Rosie to come back to television on 'The View' even for just one year," Walters said. "She has given the program new vigor, new excitement and wonderful hours of television. I can only be grateful to her for this year."
Walters was frequently left to clean up the damage after O'Donnell. She did it most recently Monday, when O'Donnell was criticized for using bad language and attacking Rupert Murdoch from the dais of the annual New York Women in Communication awards luncheon.
"I would like to point out that Rosie's view is not always mine," Walters said. "I would like to say for the record that I am very fond of Rupert Murdoch."
The president of ABC's daytime programming says they knew when they first hired O'Donnell that anything longer than a one-year stay would be "gravy." He hopes O'Donnell will do a series of one-hour specials for the network and maybe even guest-host once in a while.
In the Trump imbroglio, O'Donnell was reportedly mad that Walters did not come more swiftly to her defense, while Trump said Walters told him she didn't want O'Donnell on the show — a claim Walters denied.
"He annoys me on a multitude of levels. He's the moral authority? Left the first wife, had an affair; left the second wife, had an affair; had kids both times, but he's the moral compass for 20-year-olds in America?" O'Donnell said at the time.
Statements by public figures are being watched more closely in the post-Don Imus era. The lobbying group Focus on the Family said it was preparing to contact advertisers on "The View" as part of a campaign against O'Donnell. The group is angry at O'Donnell for comments they feel were insulting to Catholics.
Despite controversy — or maybe because of it — O'Donnell was good business for ABC, owned by the Walt Disney Co. Ratings for "The View" during February sweeps were up 15 percent in key women demographics over the same time in 2006.
O'Donnell made the annoucement on "The View" Wednesday afternoon.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
