ABC News anchor and “The View” co-host Barbara Walters will retire in May, 2014, someone familiar with the matter tells TVNewser.
ABC is expected to air a number of specials, tributes and events over the course of the next year, leading up to Walters’ formal departure. A spokesperson for ABC News declined to comment on the matter.
Walters began her TV career for NBC’s “Today” show in 1961. She would go on to break barriers in what was traditionally a man’s world. Walters was the first female co-anchor of “Today,” and was the first woman to become the co-anchor of a network evening newscast.
She joined ABC News in 1976, where she has reported for every program imaginable and became the country’s highest-paid journalist. She also co-created “The View,” which has become one of the most successful daytime talk shows of the last decade.
Earlier this year she had a health scare after taking a fall in the British Ambassador’s residence, only to discover that she had contracted chicken pox. The illness kept her off of ABC and “The View” for a few months, and she returned in early March.