• by Wayne Friedman , January 10, 2007

ABC's "The View" has not changed its program named to "Rosie O'Donnell's View"--yet.

The positives concerning the Rosie O'Donnell-Donald Trump high-profile celebrity spat--the verbal equivalent of a steel-cage match--are the publicity gains. Both their respective shows have seen awareness boosts, even if it initially appears that "The View" made greater gains than NBC's "The Apprentice."

For the fourth quarter, "The View"'s women 18-49 audiences are up 23%; women 25-54 are 25% higher. This is all due to the new "View" panelist O'Donnell--and especially, in recent weeks, her battle with Donald Trump.

By contrast, "The Apprentice" didn't see such a large ratings hike--only up slightly to a 4.1/10 from a 3.9/9. It was on par with new NBC's reality show "Grease: You're the One That I Want." "The Apprentice" numbers were up 28% in viewers 18-49 for NBC, versus the same time period last season.

Overall, the effect of the celebrity smackdown won't do much in the long run. "I don't think it matters," says Bill Carroll, vice president and director of programming for Katz Television Group. The core audience for 'The View' is on her side. If they want to continue to take verbal chops at each other, it'll just become pretty boring."

Adds Brad Adgate, senior vice president and corporate research director for Horizon Media: "The shock factor may wear out."

While some in the media believe that "The Apprentice" didn't get the rating spike it should have from the verbal sparring, Carroll thinks otherwise--without the battle of the words, the ratings might have been lower.

"It raised the awareness level that "The Apprentice" was coming back," he says. "Every article mentioned it."

For the future, he believes the show could perk up. "It wasn't running in its normal time period," he adds. "Usually reality programs don't do their biggest numbers in their first episode."

For "The View" to gain as much as it has over the past several months is a major achievement. "It's very hard to move the dial in daytime TV, what with TV being fractionalized and with viewers going to other sources," notes Adgate.

O'Donnell's frank talk in recent months shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. "At this stage you pretty much know what you getting from her," says Adgate. "She came from having a very successful talk show. She is very familiar with daytime viewers. But she is in an ensemble cast. It's different. She is not in charge. If the ratings are up, and the advertisers are OK with it, then it works."