Walters Trying Hand At Daytime Producing

Barbara Walters is moving into the daytime arena, mostly as a producer.

ABC’s periodic prime-time interviewer and full-time “20/20” co-host is the driving force behind a series the network is considering as a replacement for the troubled daytime talker “Caryl & Marilyn: Real Friends.”

Along with Bill Geddie, who produces her prime-time specials, Walters will executive-produce “The View From Here,” an hourlong series pilot for the network.

“The format is sort of a panel, with four women of different ages offering different opinions of everything under the sun,” an ABC spokeswoman said.

Under the current plan, if the series were to get picked up, Walters would appear about twice a week as part of the discussion.

Basically, the show will look at a variety of topics, including power, sex, relationships and Hollywood, the spokeswoman said. There may also be celebrity interviews, experts and calls from viewers.

The pilot for the live series will be shot during the next two weeks. It’s just one of a handful of projects ABC is considering for 11 a.m.

The time slot has been troublesome for ABC for years, with “Caryl & Marilyn” being the latest show to founder in the space. The program, a mix of talk and how-to, has struggled since its debut in June.

‘Suddenly Susan’ renewed

The folks at “Suddenly Susan” can rest easy. The first-year NBC sitcom has been renewed for another season, sources say.

Despite its status as the third-most-watched series of the season, there has been talk that Brooke Shields’ program might not make it to a sophomore season because it continually has lost a chunk of the audience delivered to it by the show airing before it. (For the most part, that was TV’s top comedy, “Seinfeld.”)

Yet “Suddenly Susan” fared better this season in the post-“Seinfeld” 9:30 p.m. slot than did “The Naked Truth,” which was replaced in that primo spot last week by Sharon Lawrence’s new comedy, “Fired Up.”