Talk:The Phil Donahue Show

Longest Running Talk Show

There are several claimants: The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Larry King Show, The Tonight Show, Joe Franklin, and others, even making such claims in the Wikipedia to be the longest running. What is the source that The Phil Donahue Show was the longest running? patsw (talk) 21:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

You didn't read the whole sentence, because you would have seen that the Donahue show is the longest-running syndicated talk program in U.S. television history. The key word is syndicated. As for the others you listed, here's the breakdown:

• The Oprah Winfrey Show is currently in its 22nd season. Oprah needs four more years to catch up to Phil, but her current contract runs through 2011, her 25th season.
• The Tonight Show, which premiered in 1954, is an NBC network program. Always has been and always will be. It doesn't count.
• The Joe Franklin Show ran for 43 years (1950-1993) locally in New York. This program was never syndicated (despite WOR-TV/WWOR-TV being a superstation), and thus doesn't count either.
• Larry King Live has been a CNN show since 1987. Doesn't count here either.

Only two truly syndicated talk programs come close to Donahue, and they are Oprah and Live with Regis and..., which is celebrating its 20th anniversary during this current season. Next is the Mike Douglas Show, which ran from 1963 to 1982 (not including two years locally in Cleveland). The Sally Jessy Raphaël Show also aired for 19 years (1983-2002), and the Maury, Jerry Springer, and Montel Williams shows all premiered in 1991. Montel will complete his 17-year syndicated run later this year.

Is that enough verification for you? Rollosmokes (talk) 06:46, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

San Francisco

Shortly after Phil Donahue got the boot on KGO in the 1995-96 season by The Ricki Lake Show, the show moved to KTVU and aired the program at 1 PM. Ricki would be replaced by Rosie O'Donnell in 1996 on KGO. JD2635 (talk) 17:21, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

List of episodes by year?

So where can I find a full list of all episodes, broadcast date, program topics, and guest lists for The Phil Donahue Show episodes?

We have Wikipedia articles dedicated to every other ridiculous topic such as List of SpongeBob SquarePants episodes, so we can dedicate some space here to more serious historical long-running programming like this show, also.

-- DMahalko (talk) 22:43, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Gulf War

Is there a transcript of what he said about the Gulf War? His attitudes about it seem to be pivotal to the history of the show but it's not even clear what his stance was let alone what he said. I think a quote would be very helpful to contextualize the quote, give us a sense of the host's broader beliefs, and the milieu in which he made the quote. -Mathme