No boohoo for ex-‘view’ crew
This week, so many women left ABC it was like a network-wide promo for HBO’s “The Leftovers,” a series in which 2% of the population spontaneously disappears. On Wednesday, the network announced Diane Sawyer was leaving the sweet spot at “World News” to “produce specials,” and on Thursday they canned Jenny McCarthy (right) and Sherri Shepherd (far right) from “The View.”
Since “leaving to produce specials” is for TV anchors what “wants to spend more time with the family” is for CEOs, the cliché didn’t exactly fly too high.
The fact is that nobody in TV has ever left of their own free will to produce specials, well, except Barbara Walters.
If Sawyer is getting a Manolo Blahnik in the ass just so ABC can bring in the younger (and, frankly, as competent) male, David Muir, shame on them.
That move is sexist, ageist and also dumb. No matter what fantasies news bosses perpetually harbor, those coveted younger men (the golden demographic) don’t rush home like 1960s dads in time to watch the 6 o’clock news.
If 18-49-year-olds are home, it’s because they’re either out of work, and therefore can’t afford the incontinence supplies (they also don’t need) advertised on the evening news, or they’re young moms who sure don’t have
time to watch the news and are only interested in the diapers that babies wear.
But most women don’t really count in TV news programmers’ minds because, according to some ancient advertising wisdom, women don’t change brands after 25 or some idiocy.
Of course, Sawyer’s defied convention and has been doing that high-profile-but-boring “real man’s” gig since 2009. Maybe she just wants to put on a flak jacket and get back in the action like a real woman. Stay tuned. Oh wait, nevermind. Also this week, the once great “The View” took a hit and got a hit when producers canned Sherri Shepherd — who supposedly wanted too much dough — along with the truly awful Jenny McCarthy, who had as much business on a women’s talk show as, well, any other stripper. What in hell could have ever made any of those lunkheads think that Jenny from the blockheads would be relatable to women?
Wearing glasses (and clothes, once in a great while) did not make her smart. She is still an irresponsible Playboy Playmate who wrote ridiculous books claiming that autism is caused by childhood vaccines, a theory originally based on shoddy evidence by a disbarred British doctor.
Hey, parents, let’s end autism by exposing kids to rubella. Anyway, now it’s just Whoopi at “The View.” Sure, she has done great one-woman shows, but even the Whoop can’t handle a panel show without a panel.