The Hollywood Reporter announced that despite a splashy highly-rated premiere, the new crew for season 18 on ABC’s “The View” isn’t stopping the bleeding, ratings-wise:
The show's 18th season, with Rosie O'Donnell back at the table and joined by veteran Whoopi Goldberg, actress Rosie Perez and Republican analyst Nicolle Wallace, has seen post-premiere-week viewership drop below last year, back when the need for a Barbara Walters-free makeover became apparent.
It's not that the numbers are bad. The View recently averaged a competitive 2.8 million viewers and a 1.0 rating in women 25-to-54. But its showing in the key demo is pacing downward for the fourth straight season and is 30 percent south of where it was five years ago. It doesn't help that The View's advantage over CBS's The Talk now is negligible. Recent weeks have seen the two shows evenly matched in the two key female demos.
London’s Daily Mail reported the show may be shopping for a fifth cohost, someone younger for the millennial set, to debut as soon as early in 2015. Unnamed sources claimed O’Donnell “has made it clear she’s not happy” about that idea.
