Aaron Barnhart's TVBARN.COM

Kathie Lee quits!

Kathie Lee Gifford would be the first to say that you shouldn't believe everything you read in the papers or watch on TV.

Nevertheless, Gifford's announcement at the beginning of Tuesday's broadcast of "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee" that she is leaving the show after 15 years was, she insisted, the real deal.

Gifford, 46, whose "host chats" with colleague Regis Philbin made "Live" one of TV's most popular daytime programs over the past 12 years, said she will not renew her contract when it expires this August.

The stunned studio audience gasped, prompting a smile from Gifford.

"Oh, I was hoping you'd do that!" she said.

The reason, said Gifford, had nothing to do with negotiations over her contract renewal but with her desire for more privacy for her children, 10-year-old Cody and 7-year-old Cassidy.

"When we started together," Gifford told Philbin, "I was not married, I was childless, and the world was a different kind of place, too. We could make jokes about things and tell what we did last night without anyone taking it and sensationalizing it and making it disgusting and lurid and horrible."

But now as a parent, Gifford said she had become increasingly uncomfortable with making her personal life into daily grist for the talk-show mill.

"The very thing that has made the show so successful — host chat — is the thing that caused a real concern in my life that my children be protected," she said.

Her co-host, as usual, tried to make light of the news. When Gifford referred to the "parade of contestants" who would pass through their New York TV studio this fall, vying to serve as his co-host, Philbin impishly responded, "Why does it have to be anyone?"

But Philbin knows as well as anyone that Gifford was invaluable to the show's success.

As one of daytime's top-rated programs, "Live" remade the career of Philbin, who himself made a memorable departure 30 years ago when he walked off the set of Joey Bishop's late-night show on ABC, blaming himself publicly for that show's poor ratings.

In 1985, after reviving his fortunes doing local morning television, Philbin was paired with Kathie Lee Johnson, a former "Good Morning America" correspondent and "Hee Haw Honey," on "The Morning Show" on New York's WABC-TV. On Labor Day, 1988, the show was renamed and went national. Soon audiences were tuning in, not so much for the guests but for the opening banter between cranky, old-school Reege and no-nonsense Kathie.

Their 15-minute klatch was the foundation of the program, but over time it probably owed its stature as much to Gifford's growing off-camera dossier as to the hosts' on-air chemistry. At first, the details were simply fodder for the host chat, from her courtship and marriage to broadcaster Frank Gifford to the precious moments in the lives of her children.

But over time she became identified with unfavorable publicity over a fire aboard one of the ships in the cruise line she endorses, sweatshop-like conditions at a factory that made Kathie Lee designer clothing, and an unseemly tryst involving her husband and another woman that was captured on camera and printed in a supermarket tabloid.

Radio shock jock Howard Stern was a constant irritant, and last week, during a well-received performance as guest host of the "Late Show with David Letterman," a prankster from another New York radio station got into the theater and hurled a brassiere at her while she was singing a tune.

Ironically, the lyric she was singing at that moment was, "I've learned to scoff at all the critics and laugh at all the jests."

To some of those critics, Gifford was an accomplice to her unhappiness because she continued to share her private life with her viewers on "Live" and even put her children under the same unforgiving media glare she criticized, using them on her Christmas specials for CBS and in her live act in Atlantic City, N.J.

Gifford said that Buena Vista Television, which produces "Live," had asked her for a decision on whether she would be renewing her contract by next week. By announcing her decision on live TV, she implied that this was — to use a Philbin phrase — her final answer.

But after hearing the news Tuesday, some cynics were not ruling out the possibility that Gifford's announcement was a negotiation ploy. After all, Philbin used his appearance on "Late Show with David Letterman" last week to express his displeasure that ABC was underpaying him for his work as host of the phenomenal "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." Days later, Philbin and ABC were nearing a new deal that would reportedly pay him $20 million a year.

(Here is the version that appeared in Wednesday's Kansas City Star.)

Picks to click ... for the week of Feb. 28 are here ... Also, it's not too late to start watching NBC's 10-hour miniseries epic "The 10th Kingdom." As you'll read in this review in Sunday's Kansas City Star, the best is still to come. "The 10th Kingdom" continues through March 6.

The daily digest ... for Feb. 29, 2000: During Tuesday's conference call with reporters, CBS president Leslie Moonves declared the February ratings sweep "a victory for all the networks and for network television." Moonves noted that the big four networks held their ground in viewers compared with last February (thanks no doubt to programs with the word "millionaire" in them), while cable's 10 highest-rated networks, he said, were down 8 percent ... Also from Moonves: Three top-rated programs that go up against the Regis Philbin Traveling Show — including "JAG" on CBS — remained in the Top 20 in February despite "Millionaire's" huge ratings. "ABC had `Millionaire' in 18 percent of its schedule, and if I had it, I'd have `Millionaire' in 25 percent of my schedule," said Moonves ...

Speaking of which, last Wednesday David Loehr sent me this e-mail and I wish I'd gotten around to posting it sooner: "Okay, so I'm watching 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' tonight, and the question is, 'Which show was a spin-off of a spin-off of "All in the Family?" A. "Maude," B. "Good Times," C. "Checking In," or D. "Gloria?"' It's a good thing the contestant picked one of the correct answers. Yup, answers — plural. After all, 'Maude' spun off from 'All in the Family,' and 'Good Times' spun off from 'Maude.' When they took away two answers in the 50-50, these two were left. But: 'Checking In' — all five weeks of it — spun off from 'The Jeffersons,' which of course spun off from 'All in the Family.' And if you consider 'Archie Bunker's Place' a spin-off as opposed to a continuation, then 'Gloria' could count as well. That one's more tenuous, but even so, 'Millionaire' has shown a tendency for such nebulous questions. They've really got to be more careful. (I should say, I loathe the whole game show explosion myself — I was killing time after 'That 70's Show,' honest — and questions like that are one reason why.)"

One of our favorite "Millionaire" contestants, NYU law student Matt Marcotte, posted to alt.tv.game-shows this letter he received from the show's executive producer, Michael Davies: "We are considering the possibliity of future speciality episodes, including a potential champions episode, in which some, if not all, Hot Seat contestants may be eligible to participate. Please be advised, however, that if you choose to appear on another primetime quiz show, you may be deemed ineligible to play on these potential specialty episodes." In fact, TV Barn has already heard from one contestant who was booted from the second round of "Millionaire" qualifying because someone spotted him during a (brief) appearance on "Greed" ... Finally, and we're getting as sick of these game-show items as you are, the AP reported that the Swedish version of "Millionaire" was ordered off the air last week because the government decided "the program is more a lottery than a real contest" ...

And Oxygen announced it was picking up reruns of the sitcom "Roseanne" beginning in 2003 and will split them with Nick at Nite. Oxygen will get daytime rights, Nick will get the nite — er, nighttime rights. Tom Heald adds, "Explain to me again how Oxygen is different from Lifetime?"

Previously on TV Barn:
28 Feb: Kathie Lee triumphs
24 Feb: Reader mail
23 Feb: More games to come
22 Feb: "X-Files" meets "Cops"
21 Feb: Dave is back!
18 Feb: Reader mail
17 Feb: "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?"
16 Feb: Mediachannel.org
15 Feb: Dave's coming back
10 Feb: Tom Joyner
9 Feb: Game show gossip
8 Feb: Daytime TV nuttiness

On this date... in 1983, he's seen visions of murder and been haunted by screams in the night. All of his friends have disappeared. But it's not until after his tent has been broken down and removed and he's lifted into the air that Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce discovers a mysterious rock formation with a message for him: GOODBYE. An estimated 121.6 million people tune in for "The Last "M*A*S*H" Project," a two-and-a-half hour finale titled "Goodbye, Farewell, Amen." -- Tom Heald