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Big Ratings for Babs Goodbye

Barbara Walters’s farewell to “The View” last Friday was the fourth most-watched episode of the show she founded 17 years earlier.

The NY Daily News says that an estimated 5.189 million viewers tuned in for what Walters said will be her farewell to an on-air role with the show.

Her audience trailed only the 2010 appearance of President Barack Obama, the day-after analysis of the 2008 presidential election and the crowd for the March 2, 2009 East Coast snowstorm.

Walters, who turns 85 in September, was saluted on her final show by some two dozen of the best-known female TV hosts, including Diane Sawyer, Katie Couic and others.

Her guests were Hillary Clinton, Michael Douglas and Oprah Winfrey.

Walters’s next-to-last show on Thursday, which featured all 11 present and former “View” panelists, drew 4.2 million viewers.