'View's' Ling Maps Course to Geographic Explorer

[John]

By John Dempsey

NEW YORK (Variety) - ABC's hit daytime gabber "The View" is losing one of its co-hosts, Lisa Ling, who has resigned to become host of "National Geographic Explorer."


The industry learned of Ling's departure when Barbara Walters announced the news live on the Monday telecast of "The View." Walters is co-executive producer of "The View" and an occasional co-host.

"We came after Lisa," said David Royle, executive producer of "National Geographic Explorer," citing Ling's experience as senior war correspondent for Channel One News, the network that's funneled into schoolrooms covering fifth grade through high school.

The "Explorer" series runs every Sunday on MSNBC at 6 p.m. for four hours, featuring stories ranging from natural-history documentaries and reports of expeditions to science pieces and big-picture analyzes of geographical areas in the news.

Ling succeeds Boyd Matson, who will work on a companion TV series to National Geo's Adventure magazine.

Ling, 29, joined "The View" in May 1999, succeeding Debbie Matenopoulos.

Until "The View" lands a replacement for Ling, whose last show is Dec. 5, Walters said guests like Whoopi Goldberg will fill in, joining regular hosts Meredith Vieira, Star Jones and Joy Behar.

[cali]

Fine, I'll take her place... jeez


I have only watched the View occasionally. Is she that good?

[fluff]

I'm glad she's leaving.
They treat her like crap on that show.

She isn't good on the View at all and comes across as something of an airhead and the other women constantly talk her down.

She is however, extremely knowledgable about world and political events and has often pushed to have such items included on the View.
The segments get a lukewarm response from the other ladies unfortunately.
Lisa can't compete when it comes to discussing the everyday crap the other women talk about, but she is in a league of her own whenever they do discuss world events as she is the only one who knows what she's talking about.

I'm really glad she's got this opportunoity.