Rosie O'Donnell ends second tenure on daytime's 'The View'

Rosie O'Donnell has ended her second stint on "The View," her goodbye about as short as her tenure.

Holding her toddler daughter, O'Donnell made her exit Thursday in a segment that lasted barely 40 seconds. She thanked the show's creator, Barbara Walters, for having her on twice. Her first tenure lasted a stormy eight months and ended in 2007.

She announced last weekend she was leaving. O'Donnell, who is going through a divorce and has had a heart attack, said she needed to reduce the stress in her life.

"We've had fun and I hope we'll have more," she said. "I'll come back and do an occasional crafting segment because I have a hot glue gun and will travel."

On her last show, she scolded Kanye West for his post-Grammy Awards rant at Beck, and her comment in a segment about a Montana legislator trying to ban too-tight clothing had to be bleeped out.

Her outsized personality brought the usual tabloid rumors of backstage strife at the daytime talk show. O'Donnell had returned to "The View" in September, part of a revamp aimed at stopping a ratings slide, joining Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie Perez and Nicolle Wallace on the panel.

"The change has not, given their ratings performance, been successful in that regard," said Bill Carroll, an analyst of the syndication market for Katz Media.

The ABC show has averaged 2.91 million viewers per day, down from 3.04 million last season, the Nielsen company said. The CBS knockoff "The Talk," meanwhile, in nipping at its heels with an average of 2.69 million viewers.

Now "The View" will be looking for someone new. As O'Donnell urged her daughter to wave goodbye, her co-hosts led the audience in a brief "Rosie, Rosie" chant before the cameras turned off.

Executives at "The View" have already scheduled several women for one-week guest hosting stints, widely considered tryouts. Upcoming guest hosts include Naya Rivera, Padma Lakshmi, Michelle Williams, Stacy London and Samantha Ponder.