There was only a slight twitch in the iron grin I weld in place for photo ops. ““How nice,’’ I said. Despite a massive overhaul of ““Geraldo,’’ the nationally syndicated daytime talk show that admittedly once featured my nose breaking, butt fat being injected into my forehead and ““Men in Lace Panties and the Women Who Love Them,’’ the perception remains that I am a carnival barker who morphs into a respectable broadcaster only after the sun goes down.
Driven by advertiser and TV-station resistance, ideological pressure and self-loathing, I decided last year either to change my show or get out of the daytime arena. It wasn’t so bad a decade ago when it was just Donahue, Oprah, Sally and me. In those halcyon days, Phil could get gasps and ratings by wearing a skirt, Oprah by shedding a wagonload of fat or Sally by trading in her glasses. Nobody got hurt, and the lurid offerings were always leavened by investigative pieces or feel-good epi- sodes on ““Courageous Children.''
Things started getting ugly over the last several seasons as copycats brought the number of daytime talkers to more than 25. Spectacle became the thing. It wasn’t enough to do teen hookers anymore. Now you had to have ““Watch Teenagers Tell Their Parents: Mom and Dad, I’m a Hooker.’’ Ambush interviews, meanspirited confrontations, surprise guests . . . just ask Phil Donahue how tough it became to stay competitive.
The end for me came a year ago last April. Like a short-timer in the penitentiary, I had started keeping a countdown of the number of shows remaining on my daytime contract. It was taped to my dressing-room mirror, and after every show Mike Jacobs, my longtime stage manager, would cross off another number. ““We’re going straight to hell,’’ he said, crossing out number 426. We had just finished taping ““Terrible Family Secrets,’’ which featured a swaggering, abusive young husband being told by his long-suffering wife not only that was she leaving him, but that one of the couple’s two children was not really his. He punched the setas he stormed off. ““Hell can’t be any worse than this,’’ I told Mike. The program never aired, but I was steeling myself to walk away from the show that had made me rich but ridiculed.
Ironically, it was Bill Bennett who brought me back. Last fall that self-appointed policeman of the popular culture turned his grim attention to daytime talk, excluding only the newly sainted Oprah from his wrath. He mentioned my 1988 in-studio brawl with neo-Nazis, but not that in 1995 I used the daytime show to help raise millions for the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. That made me mad. The truth was that half these shows do good at least half the time, a record probably on a par with Congress’s. I decided to prove that daytime talk could be responsible, soulful and stay competitive. I drafted my own talk-show contract with America, promising that all guests would be treated with dignity, that solutions would be emphasized over shock and light over heat. To prove to a skeptical audience of millions – like the Orange County matron – that things really are different, the name of the show will also change as of September. Leaving behind Lassie, Elvis, Fabian, Madonna and the other one-name wonders, ““Geraldo’’ will become ““The Geraldo Rivera Show.’’ Because in television perception is reality, I will also reinforce the message by wearing my CNBC glasses. Will a kinder, gentler Geraldo get good ratings? I don’t know, I’m no Rosie O’Donnell.
