The View has been under pressure for some time to deliver ratings, but a source connected to the show says bosses have been impressed by Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar and other cohosts of late – who’ve been assured their jobs are perfectly safe for the foreseeable future.
“Go back 10 months, and there was a lot of uncertainty around this show, and the move to a new studio last fall was seen as more of a hail mary than just a fresh coat of paint,” a network source exclusively tells Closer. “But that move actually made a huge difference and injected the show with some new energy and feistiness that it badly needed. Can bigger, nicer dressing rooms alone be the reason for this? Of course not.”
It was first announced in August 2024 that The View would be moving out of its longtime New York City studio and into a new spot downtown. The hosts talked about saying goodbye to their Upper West Side studio during an episode of the show, as many wondered how they would fare in their new surroundings.
“We’ve had to, for the past couple of weeks, box up things, get rid of things … We were allotted, each host, five huge cartons. I took up two, Sara [Haines] took up all five and was looking for more!” Sunny Hostin told viewers at the time.
“And Ana [Navarro], please don’t say that you were a purger, because I think you had over 50 pairs of shoes in your [dressing] room,” she joked about her cohost.
Moving into the new studio hasn’t been the only change that’s had a positive impact on the talk show in recent months. The source says the show boasts a unique rapport between its stars that is unmatched by any other cast on daytime TV, with the cohosts being pushed to entertain difficult conversations and tackling global issues in each episode.
“Simultaneous to the physical move downtown, you really saw Whoopi and Joy step up their on-air game, which was needed, and Sunny’s preparation for each show, in the host banter and interview segments, is clearly top of class,” the insider adds.
“Viewers need to really feel that the ladies want to be there, and the refreshed look of the show is helping that come across,” the source says. “The show still makes money but the current lineup has totally proven their relevance and chemistry over the last four months, and there’s still something special about The View after all these years, even if it looked like people forgot about what that was for a while there!”
And the ratings speak for themselves. In a February 10 ratings report from ABC, it was revealed that The View saw “gains week to week across key women demos, hitting a three-month high to deliver second strongest women numbers of the season.”
Additionally, the report said during this season, The View “is ranking No. 1 in Households (1.77 rtg.) and Total Viewers (2.592 million) among all daytime talk shows and news programs for the fifth straight season.”
