‘The View’ Barbara Walters’ Vision Of A Talk/News TV Show Premieres On Abc Monday Morning

A year or more ago, Barbara Walters had a vision.

It was a vision of “Live with Regis & Kathie Lee” crossed with “This Week with David Brinkley.” With a team of women from all age groups.

Walters’ vision has become “The View” for everyone to see starting Monday at 10 a.m. on ABC.

Airing live each weekday, “The View” is being pitched as a kaffee klatsch with extra caffeine. And somewhat of a premium blend.

Its regulars include Walters, who presumably needs no introduction, as well as TV journalist Meredith Vieira (in her early 40s), Star Jones (a former prosecutor who, in her mid30s, has been a legal correspondent for NBC News and “Inside Edition”), and, billed as “the newcomer,” Debbie Matenopolous (a tender 22).

Two or three days a week, comedienne Joy Behar will spell Walters, who, despite her role as a co-executive producer, wants it understood she’s part of an ensemble. “I don’t want a big role in this,” said Walters, plenty busy already with “20/20” and her specials. “This isn’t ‘The Barbara Walters Show.’ “

Last Monday morning, a week to the moment before its premiere, “The View” played for an audience of 60 bused in from New Jersey to watch a rehearsal.

In the Manhattan studio last occupied by ABC’s defunct soap “The City,” the group beheld a dream Tribeca loft, complete with exposed brick walls, cast-iron columns and Persian area rugs accenting the blond hardwood floor.

Then for the next hour, Walters and company kicked around that morning’s headlines. They hashed out so-called “hot topics” including male alimony and nude vacations.

For the celebrity segment, Vieira chatted up a soap star.

Then came a discussion of breast-reduction surgery for medical reasons, as the plumpish Jones interviewed a plastic surgeon who, she announced, had performed such surgery on her.

All in all, it was a breezy, good-humored hour perhaps most distinguished by what it wasn’t (stupid, salacious, raucous, depraved).

“I think doing this show is a question of good taste,” Walters was saying after they wrapped, “and we have it.”

“She doesn’t want this to be fluff,” Vieira added. “It’s her reputation at stake, more than anybody else’s out here.”

Maybe, maybe not. Surely Meredith Vieira has no longing to be mistaken for Sally Jessy Raphael.

Up to now, she has demonstrated brains and class as an award-winning correspondent on “60 Minutes” and “Turning Point.” And as a wife and a mother of three, she has worked to balance a career with her family life.

Indeed, it was Vieira’s reluctance to be on the road that led to her recent departure from ABC News’ “Turning Point” magazine, she said. “And then I got a call from Barbara.”

The slot Vieira was looking to fill calls for her to serve not only as a panelist, but also as “The View’s” moderator.

“I did the audition, and I had a good time!” she confided, as if still surprised.

“Up to now, I’ve been so careful about never putting my opinion into the things I do. But I figured, maybe it’s time for me to do something different.” She laughed. “And I needed a job.”

So, for that matter, did Matenopolous, who is still pinching herself over landing this one.

A 1996 graduate of New York University’s School of Journalism, the Richmond, Va., native was working as a $500-a-week production assistant at MTV when, last spring, she threw caution to the wind and auditioned for “The View.”

No one at the show needed a screen test to tell she has youth and good looks, but was there more to the package?

Already saddled with a $40,000 college debt, she was about to have her power cut off when the verdict was returned on her answering machine. The message she played back was from Walters’ own lips: Welcome aboard!

“This is a dream job,” breathed the otherwise high-spirited Matenopolous in a saying-this-too-loud-might-jinx-it whisper. “One minute I’m shocked, the next minute I’m scared, the next minute I’m thrilled.”

Mostly she’s thrilled to be part of this Lilith Fair of talk TV.

“If this show were about competition, I couldn’t be in it,” she said. “But it’s not. It’s about coming together and everybody bringing something to the table.”

She means besides a smile and a coffee mug.