Phil Donahue Revolutionized Daytime TV and the Culture Wars Alongside It

For adults of a certain era, daytime talk shows of the 1980s and 1990s offered a world of thrilling and dramatic escapades during a sick day at home from school.

Ideally, your parents or caregivers would leave you alone so you could indulge in these TV shows all day, surrounded by snacks, absorbing the melodrama. There were spontaneous fistfights, dramatic makeovers, and paternity tests. Interestingly, I attended a taping of Maury Povich’s show in college, lured in with free pizza to stay through a book promotion.

Like network TV soap operas and mid-20th century “trashy novels,” these tabloid talk shows played an essential cultural role during their prime. They introduced controversial topics and individuals to a broad audience, giving visibility to marginalized people such as survivors of abuse, LGBTQ+ individuals, and those with various disabilities. While exploiting these stories for views, the shows also led audiences to better understand and perhaps empathize with people who strayed from societal norms.

It’s a case of two steps forward, one step back still leading to progress.

The genre eventually declined into questionable pseudo-therapy and sensationalism. However, the 1980s saw a few notable broadcasters like Sally Jessy Raphael and Geraldo Rivera tackling significant societal issues through this format. But before these pioneers, there was Phil Donahue, whose innovative approach and respect for his audience’s intelligence helped invent this genre.

Phil Donahue, who passed away on August 18 at age 88, was the godfather of audience participation-based talk shows. “The Phil Donahue Show,” later simply “Donahue,” ran for 29 seasons from 1967 to 1996. Donahue started his broadcasting career in the 1950s, advancing from production assistant roles to a morning newscast anchor in Dayton, Ohio, by the 1960s. By the time “Donahue” debuted, he had already interviewed significant political figures like John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Jimmy Hoffa.

During an era dominated by entertainment variety hours, Donahue stood out by focusing each episode on a single guest or topic. He solicited real-time questions and feedback from his studio audience, breaking away from the traditional talk show host setup or hidden behind a desk. Donahue roamed the stage with a microphone and an earnest curiosity about the topics discussed. This revolutionary method — offering both new information and audience reactions — predated Internet comment sections by nearly five decades.

With fiercely progressive values for the time, Donahue tackled a wide range of topics, from human rights to more salacious subjects. His first guest was the controversial public atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair. In 1982, he was the first talk show host to feature an AIDS patient, a full three years before President Ronald Reagan even acknowledged the disease.

While many of his successors leaned into chaos and controversy, often with disastrous results, Donahue maintained a balanced and journalistic approach. A friend once remarked to me, “Donahue was classier, more journalistic, than the others who came later.”

Today, the Internet and social media allow people with specific interests to easily find and build communities. However, before platforms like Instagram, Reddit, and TikTok existed, talk shows like Donahue’s widened viewers’ horizons, introducing them to new hobbies and people they had never encountered before.

Personally, talk shows were formative for me. Shows sometimes featured goth teens as emblematic of the ’90s decline, but I found them intriguing. Now, as an adult with seventeen facial piercings, I realize those shows had a lasting impact.

Rewatching a 1991 episode of “Donahue” on anti-trans violence, I was less struck by the outdated terminology and more by Donahue’s directness as an interviewer. Speaking to a person who recounted being beaten by actor Danny Bonaduce, Donahue didn’t shy away from discomforting questions. He wasn’t warm or supportive, but he wasn’t judgmental either. His transparency allowed his guest to be candid and unrehearsed, providing a raw glimpse into their experience.

Observing this interaction, I felt genuine sadness for the person recounting their violation. Donahue wasn’t above using scandalous elements of his guests’ lives to draw in viewers, but he was bold in his efforts to normalize these issues, presenting them with a balanced and often empathetic lens.