Handsome, intelligent, and sensitive, Donahue was the interesting husband who they wished they had. Donahue personality greatly enhanced the shows appeal to this demographic. The Donahue show had begun to target an under appreciate demographic: the stay at home middle-class housewife. While one of the shows keys to success was its willingness to tackle controversy, another was its discovery of an important new TV audience. In January of 1970 the show moved into nationwide syndication. The West Side erupted, and the State National Guard had been called in to restore order. The police were unable to find the killers, and pointedly discounted the description of events by black eye-witnesses. Only the year before the city had been torn apart by the 1966 race riot, initiated by the murder of a black man by a car of white men. It was during this early phase that Donahue ventured onto the University of Dayton campus to observe a daylong discussion on race relations that student activists had organized. Dayton Daily Collection, Wright State University Bottom: Donahue interviewing Margret Mead in 1972. Top: Donahue raising money for charity at Dayton Dixie Bowl in 1968. Adding to the format he invited his audience to call-in and talk with the guests or contribute to survey about their feeling regarding the topic of the show. For example, Donahue introduced viewers to the life of an undertakers, introduce them to political radicals, and took them into the hospital to watch a childbirth. Other novelties of the show were to show audiences the lives of people or looked into situations they typically shunned because of social pressure or fear. She believed religion was contrary to the spirit of American freedom and wanted to ban prayer in public schools. His first guest was an atheist named Madalyn O’Hair. On Novemthe first showed aired and gave a glimpse into the solution Donahue and his colleagues had devised. Donahue did not have the budget to fly-in important people from the East and West coasts. At that time the typical format of existing entertainment interview shows featured famous guests. Working for a small station and in the mid-west, Donahue faced a significant challenge in making such a show work. It was not going to be easy to carry-off the plan. The plan was for him to host a call-in Daytime TV talk show. It did not take much for the general manager of rival Dayton TV station, WLWD (WDTN today), to convince him to return to the air waves. Three months of working as the salesman taught Donahue to appreciate working in radio and TV.
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