MSNBC Cancels Donahue

MSNBC canceled Phil Donahue's talk show just six months after the program
premiered.

Donahue averaged 620,000 viewers when the show premiered in July, which
was its best month. The show averaged 421,000 viewers in January, and 446,000 in
February.

Donahue, who shot his final show Monday, was notified that the show was
canceled Tuesday morning, MSNBC spokesman Alan Winnikoff said.

MSNBC will run its final Donahue show Friday. The network plans to
replace the talk show, which runs at 8 p.m., with an extra hour of Lester Holt's
Countdown: Iraq.

"We're proud of the program, and we're disappointed that the show was not
able to attract the viewership we had hoped for and expected," MSNBC president
Erik Sorenson said in a prepared statement.