{"id":533261,"date":"2022-12-31T20:08:46","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T17:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/barbara-walters-changed-tv-interviews-in-a-way-that-may-never-return\/"},"modified":"2022-12-31T20:08:46","modified_gmt":"2022-12-31T17:08:46","slug":"barbara-walters-changed-tv-interviews-in-a-way-that-may-never-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/barbara-walters-changed-tv-interviews-in-a-way-that-may-never-return\/","title":{"rendered":"#Barbara Walters Changed TV Interviews in a Way That May Never Return"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2eaebd41f51\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2eaebd41f51\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/barbara-walters-changed-tv-interviews-in-a-way-that-may-never-return\/#Barbara_Walters_Changed_TV_Interviews_in_a_Way_That_May_Never_Return\" >Barbara Walters Changed TV Interviews in a Way That May Never Return<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Barbara_Walters_Changed_TV_Interviews_in_a_Way_That_May_Never_Return\"><\/span>Barbara Walters Changed TV Interviews in a Way That May Never Return<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    When Barbara Walters interviewed Monica Lewinsky for that special episode of<em> 20\/20 <\/em>back in 1999, a total of 74 million Americans tuned in to ABC to watch. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Seventy four million. That was one quarter of the entire U.S. population at the time. The interview averaged a 48 share, meaning that nearly half of all TV sets in use at the time were watching Walters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    By now much has been written about Walters\u2019 groundbreaking career at NBC and ABC, in the mornings on <em>Today<\/em> and in the evenings on the <em>ABC Evening <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a><\/em>. She changed how TV news anchors were paid (today\u2019s 8-figure deals would not exist had Walters not paved the way) and transformed daytime TV with <em>The View<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    But the news anchor, who died Friday at the age of 93, also fundamentally changed a core piece of the TV journalism repertoire: The interview. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Walters took the newsworthy interview and turned it into an event: must-see TV.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Her skill and preparation, combined with her unmatched ability to snag big \u201cgets\u201d took one of the most common and banal TV news formats and made it water cooler conversation. Instead of interviews taking up five minutes of a morning show or evening newscast, or perhaps a longer segment on Sunday mornings, they would take up an entire hour of primetime network TV, where they were up against football, dramas and sitcoms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    And Walters\u2019 primetime interviews frequently won their time slots, with moments from those conversations becoming cultural touchstones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Her Peabody-winning 1995 interview with actor Christopher Reeve (his first since a horseback riding accident left him paralyzed) garnered a 36 share, with more than a third of all TV sets that hour tuning in. Reeve, who Walters interviewed a few more times until his death in 2004, used the interviews to advocate for the rights of disabled people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Her interviews with Fidel Castro were unlike anything Americans had seen on TV before, with the Cuban dictator acting as tour guide at the Bay of Pigs and in the Cuban mountains where his rebellion was born. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    But she never held back, always willing to ask direct, pointed questions. Whether it was Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin in 2001 (asking whether he had ever ordered anyone to be killed), or Syria\u2019s Bashar al-Assad (asking whether he thought he was the next dictator to be killed or overthrown by his people), Walters secured interviews with powerful figures that others couldn\u2019t snag and asked the tough questions others wouldn\u2019t ask. And Americans watched.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    But she was just as effortless when interviewing the powerful at home. Her primetime interviews with Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter became the template for what is now a relatively common fixture on TV: The presidential profile.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    And her interviews with the famous and infamous still reverberate to this day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    When actress Katherine Hepburn told Walters that she sometimes sees herself as a tree, Walters responded quickly with \u201cwhat kind of tree are you, if you think you\u2019re a tree?\u201d And her interview with boxer Mike Tyson and his then-wife Robin Givens saw Givens tell Walters that she was \u201cvery, very afraid\u201d of her husband when he was angry. She filed for a divorce a month later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    At <em>The View <\/em>she brought that dynamic to daytime TV, always willing to let a newsworthy interview run long, while allowing her co-panelists to team up and grill the day\u2019s guest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    But while the primetime news-maker interview has not dis<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>eared (in just the last few months ABC\u2019s <em>20\/20<\/em> ran interviews with Michelle Obama and Matthew Perry, among others), they simply aren\u2019t the cultural moments that they were when Walters was in the room.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    That\u2019s why its newsworthy when a primetime interview breaks through the clutter (for example, Oprah Winfrey\u2019s 2021 interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, which drew 17 million viewers, a ho-hum number by Walters\u2019 standards but a huge smash in today\u2019s world).<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    And with everything other than live news, sports and entertainment going to streaming services first, the days of the interview as water cooler fodder may be nearing their end. When George Stephanopoulos scored the first interview with ex-British spy Christopher Steele, he ran a segment on his Sunday show, and saved the hourlong special for Hulu. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    When Casey Anthony decided to give her first interview since being acquitted for the murder of her daughter more than a decade ago, she did it for a Peacock docu<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">series<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Walters was a trailblazer, but her contributions to TV news were far more everlasting. The formats she created are everywhere (Fox News Channel\u2019s most-watched show in 2022 was <em>The Five<\/em>, a panel show featuring a format very similar to that of <em>The View<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    But just as she helped create the interview-as-event, her retirement in 2014 marked the beginning of the end for the format. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    It will never go away entirely, but only Walters could get all of America to tune in.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/plain\" class=\"optanon-category-C0004\">\n!function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {\nif (f.fbq) return;\nn = f.fbq = function() {n.callMethod ? n.callMethod.apply(n, arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments);};\nif (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n;\nn.push = n;\nn.loaded = !0;\nn.version = '2.0';\nn.queue = [];\nt = b.createElement(e);\nt.async = !0;\nt.src = v;\ns = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\ns.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s);\n}(window, document, 'script', 'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\nfbq('init', '352999048212581');\nfbq('track', 'PageView');\n<\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. 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Seventy four million. That was one quarter of the entire U.S. population at the time. The&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":533262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/T8DTWTW_AB0051.jpg?w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1769,87404,92287,135435],"class_list":["post-533261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-abc","tag-abc-news","tag-barbara-walters","tag-featured-voices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}