Talk show host Mike Douglas remembered

The man considered by many to be the pioneer of daytime talk show hosts passed away early today in North Palm, Florida on his 81st birthday.

Mike Douglas got his start in Cleveland in 1961 hosting the "Mike Douglas Show", an afternoon talk show that brought viewers information, entertainment and celebrity interviews. It aired every weekday for two decades.

WKYC has a unique relationship with the Douglas family. Forty years after Mike Douglas began his career at the NBC affiliate, his granddaughter Debbie Voinovich Donley designed the WKYC broadcast facility on Lakeside Avenue.

The show grew in popularity and was syndicated in 1963 to five Westinghouse-owned stations, reaching millions of households. The live broadcasts came to an end in 1965 when actress Zsa Zsa Gabor used inappropriate languague on the air. The program moved to Philadelphia in 1965.

By 1967 the program was reaching 171 markets and was watched by 6 million viewers every day. In that same year, the program received the first Emmy Award for Individual Achievement in Daytime Television from the National Accademy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Douglas' guests included seven presidents,comedians Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason, The Rolling Stones and Truman Capote. He is credited with introducing entertainers like Aretha Franklin, Barbara Streisand and Bill Cosby. He even interviewed Tiger Woods at the age of two when he was already a golf phenom.

The show transferred to Los Angeles in 1978 where it went off the air in 1981.