The Board of Directors at ABC have had enough of Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, and the lawsuits coming at them from multiple former guests and celebrities. “They’re not doing good television anymore,” said Chairman Joe Barron, “They should go back to when it was still fun. When Barbra Walters would banter with Elizabeth Hasselbeck about politics and everyone went home happy.
That’s not how it is anymore, however, and the board knows it. Faced with tough decisions, they made the call to recommend to the shareholders that a general vote to cancel the show be held. Of the 45,908 shares with voting eligibility, polling indicates a 78 percent possibility of a preclusion to the rules of quorum. If those numbers hold, the View has no chance.
“It’s not really up to them,” said ABC Entertainment Director Art Tubolls, “unless they get enough votes. If that happens, then sure, the shareholders of any company have the final say.” Whoopi Goldberg owns 11 percent of the company, giving her an advantage right off the bat. Hasselbeck says her 4 percent goes to cancel the show, and that she holds no grudges against Whoopi or “any of those people.”
It’s anyone’s guess how this plays out. The show still gets solid ratings, presumably from people tuning in to see how bad it is, but that doesn’t mean it can’t get axed from a network that has obviously held its hand for far too long.
